Speaker 1: Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
Speaker 1: activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
Speaker 1: And I'm Doctor Adity in the Rucar, a physician and
Speaker 1: medical correspondent with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience,
Speaker 1: mental health, and burnout. We're here to peel back to
Speaker 1: layers around why it's so easy for society to guard
Speaker 1: men's time as if it's diamonds and to treat women's
Speaker 1: time as if it's infinite like sands. And whether you
Speaker 1: are partnered with or without children, or in a career
Speaker 1: where you want more boundaries, this is the place for
Speaker 1: you for all family structures. We're here to take a
Speaker 1: time out to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim
Speaker 1: our time. Hi, Hi d D. I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you another story today. It's a story that I tell
Speaker 1: in fair Play that I think about all the time.
Speaker 1: It was about a woman that I met that I
Speaker 1: called Josie. Since she was a young kid, she identified
Speaker 1: herself as a skier because when she was eight years old,
Speaker 1: her parents blurred on a winter ski camp for the Poconot,
Speaker 1: and she told me about the feeling she felt at
Speaker 1: the end of that first day that she was never
Speaker 1: going to come off that mountain, that she felt spiritually
Speaker 1: connected to the world in a way an eight that
Speaker 1: sometimes when we're in uh, I I just recentent eight
Speaker 1: year old. He's now ten, but that's when his I
Speaker 1: think existential thinking began. And she said she felt really
Speaker 1: connected with nature, and as she got older, her love
Speaker 1: for the sport just grew. She did everything she could
Speaker 1: to ski. She worked after school, she saved money, and
Speaker 1: eventually she earned a ski scholarship at the University of Vermont,
Speaker 1: where she joined their alpine ski team. And then she
Speaker 1: tells me about a day after marriaging kids, where ten
Speaker 1: years into her marriage, she was feeling a really deep
Speaker 1: loss and longing for her earlier self. She had not
Speaker 1: kept up her ski practice, and so she planned a
Speaker 1: ski vacation with her family. She was really excited about it.
Speaker 1: So the trip happens. They were going to the Poconos.
Speaker 1: She was introducing her kids to that first mountain that
Speaker 1: she felt that spiritual feeling. But her flight from Tampa
Speaker 1: to Philadelphia took longer than expected. There were long delays
Speaker 1: in connecting flights that made everyone cranky, and by the
Speaker 1: time they started to descend, Josie's two older boys were
Speaker 1: being screamed at by the light attendants, taking off their seatbelts,
Speaker 1: throwing snats at each other at the flight attendants. She
Speaker 1: had her thirteen month old with her and she was
Speaker 1: still breastfeeding, and she started to feel like she had
Speaker 1: to breastfeed or she was going to get mastadis. Her husband,
Speaker 1: usually helpful, was in a terrible mood and they collect
Speaker 1: their bags, their double stroller, their booster seats from the
Speaker 1: baggage carousel. She's dealing with three melting down kids, a
Speaker 1: child on her boob, whining about being hungry, and in
Speaker 1: all of the chaos, the thing that she was most
Speaker 1: excited to bring with her her beloved skis. She had others,
Speaker 1: but she kept this one pair that felt very sentimental
Speaker 1: to her. Her beloved skis did not come out from
Speaker 1: the luggage on time, and she tells me about the
Speaker 1: feeling of saying, I'm going to resign myself to leaving
Speaker 1: these skis at the airport. Her child needed to nurse,
Speaker 1: she really needed to get to the hotel, and they
Speaker 1: left and she says, you know, I really spent that
Speaker 1: weekend tending to the baby. My husband tried to get
Speaker 1: my kids interested in skiing. They grew bored. They've made snowman.
Speaker 1: They spent a lot of the time in the room
Speaker 1: and their devices, And she was really reflecting on the
Speaker 1: fact that a piece of her was left behind when
Speaker 1: she left behind her skis. She ended up eventually got
Speaker 1: her skis, she found them, but the whole experience to
Speaker 1: her was a metaphor for what it means to love
Speaker 1: something so much and then as life goes on, to
Speaker 1: leave that piece of you behind. You know, motherhood is
Speaker 1: just one facet of a multifaceted life, and for this
Speaker 1: woman Josie, skiing was such a large part of her
Speaker 1: identity prior to getting married and having children and having
Speaker 1: a family, and those skis really represented that part of
Speaker 1: her identity which she cherished and valued. She had lost
Speaker 1: along the way and was trying to reclaim it on
Speaker 1: this trip and passed down that legacy to the next generation.
Speaker 1: And so losing the skis was never about the skis.
Speaker 1: It was something so much greater than that. It's like
Speaker 1: when she lost the skis, she was fighting for that
Speaker 1: part of her identity and holding onto it. And what
Speaker 1: does it mean to have not just the external pressures
Speaker 1: but the internal pressures that we often identify as guilt
Speaker 1: and shame. I feel guilty because I want to go
Speaker 1: on a ski weekend to maintain my skill set. Who
Speaker 1: could even think about doing that? I have young children
Speaker 1: in the home. I would be leaving them. I feel
Speaker 1: guilty for leaving them. I feel internally shamed by others
Speaker 1: if I'm not a perfect parents. I wonder if you
Speaker 1: could help us understand these feelings of guilt and shame.
Speaker 1: What are they? Where do they come from? You know,
Speaker 1: when we think about guilt and shame, guilt is that
Speaker 1: feeling of regret over a wrongdoing that someone has done,
Speaker 1: typically yourself. Shame is a little different. It's when we
Speaker 1: view ourselves as being less than We feel less worthy,
Speaker 1: less valuable, and it's usually in response to something external,
Speaker 1: like a social construct. So for me, guilt has been
Speaker 1: really interesting the thing to think about. It had a
Speaker 1: good place in my life for a while. But I
Speaker 1: think when I was a parental child, a d D
Speaker 1: and growing up but the sabled younger brother and a
Speaker 1: mother who worked nights, I think guilt help propel me along.
Speaker 1: I think feeling guilty about disappointing my teacher, or feeling
Speaker 1: guilty because I didn't complete the homework assignment the best
Speaker 1: that I could. It wasn't always a bad thing. Negative
Speaker 1: experiences or emotions or feelings can help us be the
Speaker 1: catalysts of change, and they can be a positive thing
Speaker 1: if it helps you make change and take strides like
Speaker 1: you did in your life. When we think about mental health,
Speaker 1: these emotions guilt many others. When they start bleeding into
Speaker 1: your sense of identity and you're unable to place a
Speaker 1: clear border around it, that's when trouble can set in.
Speaker 1: So it's not necessarily that having a negative emotion is bad.
Speaker 1: It can propel us to a better place, just like
Speaker 1: having stress isn't bad. When scientific terms, it's called when
Speaker 1: something is adaptive that chal and just when something that
Speaker 1: is negative goes from being adaptive to maladaptive that it
Speaker 1: no longer serves a positive function. It's hard for you
Speaker 1: to get up in the morning, hard for you to
Speaker 1: do your work, to engage with people and have meaningful relationships.
Speaker 1: That's that red flag, and hopefully our listeners and even
Speaker 1: you and I and our friends and colleagues before we
Speaker 1: get to that place of danger. There are many tells
Speaker 1: and many things we can do before it becomes maladaptive.
Speaker 1: We're so excited to talk about all of this with
Speaker 1: today's get Dr Cheryl Gonzalez Ziegler. We're meeting her after
Speaker 1: the break. Dr Cheryl Gonzalez Ziegler is here with us.
Speaker 1: She's the best selling author of Mommy Burnout, the podcast
Speaker 1: host of Dr Cheryl's pod Couch I Love That Podcast,
Speaker 1: a ted X speaker, and runs a private practice group
Speaker 1: in Denver, Colorado. She's an expert on topics related to parenting,
Speaker 1: women's mental health, and stress. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me. I'm so thrilled to be talking to both
Speaker 1: of you. You are a canary in the coal mine,
Speaker 1: Cheryl calling these issues out I think when people were
Speaker 1: not ready or willing to listen to them. And I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you being here because we're talking today about
Speaker 1: a subject that you know very well, you speak about often,
Speaker 1: and your tips and practical tricks have helped me immensely.
Speaker 1: And that topic is guilt and shame and it's relation
Speaker 1: to burnout, its relation to keeping women small, not living
Speaker 1: in their full power, whether it's outside the home and
Speaker 1: their unicorn space. And so I want to know if
Speaker 1: we can just start with how you got into your work,
Speaker 1: How did you know that burned out mothers should be
Speaker 1: the source of an entire book. I'm happy to share
Speaker 1: how this came about because it is a little bit
Speaker 1: of a story, and it was really organic and took
Speaker 1: a couple of years. I have a private practice in
Speaker 1: Denver called the Child and Family Therapy Center, So oftentimes
Speaker 1: moms would be bringing their kids in and for whatever
Speaker 1: different reasons, my kids being bullied, they have anxiety, I
Speaker 1: think my kids cutting, they have depression. So they come
Speaker 1: in with the presenting problem being something going on with
Speaker 1: their child, and then usually by the end of the
Speaker 1: intake session they would joke and say, maybe it's me
Speaker 1: that needs to be coming into therapy. Then I really
Speaker 1: had become evolved to the point where oftentimes about half
Speaker 1: the week I would spend with just the parents and
Speaker 1: then maybe half the week with kids. And when we
Speaker 1: were meeting, I just started noticing certain things. They were saying,
Speaker 1: I'm exhausted all the time. Is this all there is?
Speaker 1: I waited all my life for this to get married
Speaker 1: to have the house, to have the kid. Why am
Speaker 1: I not happy? And I noticed the same kinds of
Speaker 1: thoughts and questions. And I also noticed that whether they
Speaker 1: were a stay at home mom or a working mom,
Speaker 1: there was no difference. They were all saying the same thing.
Speaker 1: And I was really struck by that. And then I
Speaker 1: had my second child. I had this feeling, and it
Speaker 1: was pretty quick a couple of weeks after I had him,
Speaker 1: like I was drowning underwater, and then I would come
Speaker 1: back up and take a deep breath and just to
Speaker 1: drown again. And then I thought, Oh, my gosh, I
Speaker 1: think this is what those moms have been talking about
Speaker 1: for these past years. This is what it actually feels like.
Speaker 1: I truly like a breathing issue, like a like I'm
Speaker 1: trying to just catch my breath, like I'm trying to
Speaker 1: snee go off and spend time in the bathroom the
Speaker 1: only time I wasn't being bothered or asked a question
Speaker 1: or being tugged at. And so it was at that
Speaker 1: moment that I thought to myself, especially when I got
Speaker 1: back to work, which by the way, I was like
Speaker 1: counting the weeks until I could get back to work
Speaker 1: because I was like, oh, working is so much easier
Speaker 1: than this. And then when I got back there, I
Speaker 1: realized a simple thought. If my three o'clock only knew
Speaker 1: how my four o'clock felt, and that the five felt
Speaker 1: like the four, I just think the world would be
Speaker 1: a better place. And so when I was originally writing
Speaker 1: Mommy Burnout, the working title of it was modern Day Motherhood.
Speaker 1: And when my agent read it, she said, you're gonna
Speaker 1: need to name this condition, Like you can't just say
Speaker 1: this is modern day motherhood, and like, but it is,
Speaker 1: and she's like, work on that, like what what is
Speaker 1: the condition that what's going on? And so really I
Speaker 1: started doing research on chronic stress and um stress in general,
Speaker 1: and then once I got back to looking at burnout
Speaker 1: from a true clinical definition, I thought, wow, this is it.
Speaker 1: I think that you can experience burnout in the different
Speaker 1: occupations that you hold, in the different roles that you have.
Speaker 1: And I thought the definition, which is the physical and
Speaker 1: emotional exhaustion that results from feeling like you are unaccomplished
Speaker 1: or not good at your job, I thought just matched
Speaker 1: motherhood really well. And so that's how it kind of
Speaker 1: all came together. You know what's amazing Cheryl is that,
Speaker 1: in spite of you having all of the research and
Speaker 1: the education is a psychologist, you went through that experience,
Speaker 1: you felt all of the same things. It is remarkable
Speaker 1: and even to this day, because it's been a lot
Speaker 1: of years now that I've been really focused on women's
Speaker 1: health issues, chronic stress and burnout. And even though I
Speaker 1: am in that world, the only thing that means that
Speaker 1: I like to tell people this is I still experienced
Speaker 1: stress and then chronic stress. But I just know the
Speaker 1: signs and I'm quicker now too correct right, I'm quicker
Speaker 1: to say whoa, we have to put the brakes on
Speaker 1: right now? Or no? Or I know how to say
Speaker 1: no now. I did not know how to say no
Speaker 1: a few years ago. That's what I want for people.
Speaker 1: I just want them to know the signs, the symptoms,
Speaker 1: and the what to do because stress is a normal
Speaker 1: part of everyday life. So we have so many questions
Speaker 1: for you, and I'm going to start off and I'm
Speaker 1: going to quote you. You have said before, just because
Speaker 1: you've become a mother doesn't mean you have to surrender
Speaker 1: your entire life and all of your dreams. We have
Speaker 1: this false conception that to be a good mom means
Speaker 1: you must sacrifice who you are as a person. That
Speaker 1: simply isn't true, and it's a huge mistake. When I
Speaker 1: read that, I had that aha moment the same way
Speaker 1: you did with all of your patients. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about why this thinking is so
Speaker 1: common for what you describe as modern motherhood. So when
Speaker 1: I was doing research and I look back, it was
Speaker 1: so interesting. We probably have all read The Feminine Mystique
Speaker 1: by Betty for Dan. I remember when I read it.
Speaker 1: I read it in a women's studies class in college.
Speaker 1: It didn't strike me personally, so I probably read it,
Speaker 1: got my grade and moved on. But when I was
Speaker 1: studying the history of motherhood reading books that were written
Speaker 1: more like in the seventies and the sixties. If you
Speaker 1: just open up that book, chapter one is called the
Speaker 1: Problem that has No Name, And I was like, huh,
Speaker 1: And if you read it, it's all about the problem
Speaker 1: that has no name is the pressure and the stress
Speaker 1: that women who become mother's feel. That there's a condition
Speaker 1: in which you get married and you have children, and
Speaker 1: you think that your role is going to become very clear,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden you lose your identity
Speaker 1: in your children, and by doing so, the vast majority
Speaker 1: of women are highly, highly distressed. They lose interest, they
Speaker 1: feel that they're not interesting. But essentially they were saying,
Speaker 1: at three o'clock in the afternoon, when I know those
Speaker 1: kids are going to come home, I take what we
Speaker 1: call Mommy's little helper, which we now know our anti
Speaker 1: anxiety medication. Right, So Mommy's Little Helper was like xan X,
Speaker 1: and they were doing that in the nineteen sixties. So
Speaker 1: the modern day version of that is wine America takes
Speaker 1: anti anxiety meds by the millions, So we are still
Speaker 1: doing that in addition to then socially acceptable drinking that
Speaker 1: we all couch as like we need it right on
Speaker 1: wine time, Mommy's juice, mommy juice, all these things, all
Speaker 1: these code words that we have for I'm so stressed
Speaker 1: that I need to alter my chemistry and my reality
Speaker 1: to just get through the afternoon. So when we not
Speaker 1: only get the message that well, that's just part of
Speaker 1: being a woman, and you know, if you have a
Speaker 1: problem with it, we'll like just something. Just take a pill,
Speaker 1: or take a little CBD, or you have a little
Speaker 1: marijuana or whatever. It's going to be just mellow out
Speaker 1: if we keep perpetuating that, and we keep ascribing to
Speaker 1: that this is the legacy that we're leaving our children,
Speaker 1: which is motherhood is in some ways so stressful and
Speaker 1: you lose your identity that you have to numb your
Speaker 1: way through it. And I really want to change that narrative.
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be that way. But I think
Speaker 1: people don't know the way out of that because that's
Speaker 1: not something that's really shown to us. We don't know
Speaker 1: the way. We have so many forms to self medicate,
Speaker 1: and it's just because we're just trying to power through
Speaker 1: and come out, like you said, rather than feel all
Speaker 1: of those feelings. Absolutely, you just reminded me when you
Speaker 1: said that. But I didn't mention social media, right, that's
Speaker 1: a very modern way that people come out binging on Netflix.
Speaker 1: It's just anything that in moderation can be perfectly healthy
Speaker 1: or fine, but anything that takes us consciously, purposely away
Speaker 1: and out of our reality should be a yellow to
Speaker 1: a red flag to somebody that, wait, maybe you actually
Speaker 1: do need to practice presence and see what's going on here.
Speaker 1: To me, the new sort of epidemic is losing ourselves
Speaker 1: in our feeds and our screens. There's a metaphorical storm
Speaker 1: going on. But can we learn to dance in the
Speaker 1: rain as opposed to drown in it? And you have
Speaker 1: some great practical advice for sort of first steps for
Speaker 1: recognition about I want to live more at the intersection
Speaker 1: of meaning and happiness because we know that meaning without
Speaker 1: happiness is a lot of what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: Being defined by our roles does bring meaning. I think
Speaker 1: we'd all hear as parents say that we have meaning.
Speaker 1: But when three o'clock comes around, if I'm holding the
Speaker 1: afternoon card or the weekends, oh my god it you know,
Speaker 1: my heart pounds on Friday night. So if we want
Speaker 1: to make our leisure time more nutritious, and we want
Speaker 1: to understand that life is dancing in the rain, we're
Speaker 1: not telling you it's going to be you know, cupcakes
Speaker 1: and rainbows. But where would you suggest people start. It's
Speaker 1: really hard, right because on the one hand, you say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to see parents numbing out,
Speaker 1: And on the other hand, self care. You must do
Speaker 1: self care. You must put on your oxygen mask. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you look at those things, I can see
Speaker 1: how somebody might say, well, which is it, because maybe
Speaker 1: my self care is binging on Netflix or scrolling on
Speaker 1: Instagram and looking at whatever beautiful homes or whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you're looking at. So I like when people
Speaker 1: ask those questions and I'm like, okay, good, let's have
Speaker 1: a conversation about this. Self care is truly something that
Speaker 1: is subjective. I don't get to tell you, and you
Speaker 1: don't get to tell me what my self care is
Speaker 1: by the day or maybe even by the hour. We
Speaker 1: know when somebody has a young baby, self care is
Speaker 1: taken a shower. We know that, right. We know that
Speaker 1: when you are maybe nursing, self care is putting clean braun.
Speaker 1: But then you get older and I'm not nursing anymore,
Speaker 1: So self care isn't putting a clean braun for me anymore.
Speaker 1: Every age and stage as my role as a mother
Speaker 1: has something different. Going away or spending any time with
Speaker 1: any one of my girlfriends is probably my greatest self
Speaker 1: care area, and I do that. People will say to me, well,
Speaker 1: how do you do that? Don't you feel bad? I'm
Speaker 1: absolutely not, because when I get my time to be social,
Speaker 1: to go out to just relax and not if someone
Speaker 1: you know, ask me questions, tugging on me when I
Speaker 1: come home. I am definitely a better mother, I am
Speaker 1: a better therapist, I'm a better wife, I'm a better everything.
Speaker 1: Because I'm acutely aware, like I'm running on empty. That's
Speaker 1: what burnout is. You're running on empty. If I allow
Speaker 1: myself to continue to run on fumes, guess what that
Speaker 1: one dinner, happy hour or weekend with my friends will
Speaker 1: not fill me up. So sometimes people want to know
Speaker 1: what's the difference, Like, how do you know when you're
Speaker 1: stressed or when you're burned out? When you're stressed, going
Speaker 1: and doing some of the self care stuff will fill
Speaker 1: you back up. When you're burned out, that doesn't cut it.
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, you realize, oh, I
Speaker 1: have a major life adjustment to do. Now, it's not
Speaker 1: a minor one. Oh can I get away for a night,
Speaker 1: it's beyond that, or even within your relationship, maybe one
Speaker 1: day at night actually is not going to cut it. Right.
Speaker 1: So I am acutely aware that this needs to be
Speaker 1: something that I do often. It needs to be something
Speaker 1: that is very attuned to where I'm at right. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I need quiet time, but then the next week I
Speaker 1: want to be out with maybe one friend or maybe
Speaker 1: a group of friends, and so I do that, and
Speaker 1: I make that commitment no matter what. That's self care
Speaker 1: in the intersection of guilt and shame because I will
Speaker 1: not even think twice about doing any of these things
Speaker 1: because I know that everybody benefits from it. So when
Speaker 1: I make decisions, and Eve talks about this as well,
Speaker 1: I make values driven decisions. Right, my value is mental health,
Speaker 1: of course. Right. So if I were to go out,
Speaker 1: and let's say I were to drink too much, and
Speaker 1: then the whole next day I have a hangover, I
Speaker 1: can't even hardly function with my family, I feel like crap,
Speaker 1: I have a headache laying on a couch, that actually,
Speaker 1: for me is not a values based decision. That wasn't
Speaker 1: a great decision because it didn't feel me up in
Speaker 1: order to be able to give and receive with my
Speaker 1: family the next day. But if I go out, I
Speaker 1: have a good time, I dance the next day, A
Speaker 1: values driven decision for me says, now I'm ready to
Speaker 1: be really present with you. I got I got my
Speaker 1: time alone or with friends or whatever, and now I'm
Speaker 1: here for you kids, versus feeling resentful or feeling a
Speaker 1: crap or feeling tired. And so that's how I make
Speaker 1: decisions and it helps me a lot with guilt and shame.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one more story. Last Monday, I did
Speaker 1: a talk away and it was in driving distance, but
Speaker 1: it was at a gorgeous spa at a ranch. And
Speaker 1: so they're like, oh, yeah, well, you could just drive
Speaker 1: up in the morning. It's like an hour and a
Speaker 1: half from Denver. You could be back in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: I was like, maybe you want me to come for
Speaker 1: my night. I gotta come the day before I got
Speaker 1: my night and it was so beautiful, right, And I
Speaker 1: will tell you at a tinge of like, oh, was
Speaker 1: this a little too indulgent because I didn't have to
Speaker 1: be away for a night. And I was like, no, no, no, no, right,
Speaker 1: So I'll have the feelings like anybody else. But I'm
Speaker 1: quick and I'm like, why did you make this decision?
Speaker 1: I go back to my values. Why did you make
Speaker 1: this decision? Because it's gonna be good for my health.
Speaker 1: I got to do yoga, I took a beautiful walk,
Speaker 1: I soaked in the sun that was in the mountains,
Speaker 1: and I even had quiet time to myself to read
Speaker 1: a physical book. If I have a tinge of guilt,
Speaker 1: I go back to is this in line with my values?
Speaker 1: Am I in integrity? This happened to me. Also on
Speaker 1: Monday night, my friend invited me to see a screening
Speaker 1: of West Side Story. So at first I was like
Speaker 1: that again, say I could watch it later, I can
Speaker 1: see it in the theaters. I don't have to go now.
Speaker 1: I had to record my audiobook on Sunday, so I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen Anna in a while. So blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Listening to myself, you know, I feel guilty. I feel guilty.
Speaker 1: And then finally I made the decision not to put
Speaker 1: Anna to bed. I'm making the choice not to put
Speaker 1: Anna to bed because A I really want to see
Speaker 1: West Side Story. I love musicals, especially when they're representing
Speaker 1: the people's lived experience in a more authentic way. And
Speaker 1: number two, my good friend Christie is the producer of
Speaker 1: this movie, and I really want to support her. And
Speaker 1: it was the best. It was the best that I'm
Speaker 1: still thinking about the movie. I looked up Jerome Robbin's
Speaker 1: choreography to do a couple of Unicorn space eight counts,
Speaker 1: and I'm still filled up by that two hours and
Speaker 1: I couldn't put Anna to bed and feel that. So
Speaker 1: I made that choice because and I think that reframe
Speaker 1: that you have us do instead of the self talk.
Speaker 1: I feel guilty because to saying I made the decision,
Speaker 1: because I made that choice, because it's so powerful, because
Speaker 1: then you can communicate it to your children without ambivalence. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna really try to highlight this seat of saying
Speaker 1: to my kids, I have to go do this talk, right,
Speaker 1: and everything about our body language changes and we act
Speaker 1: so like we're being tortured, like I'm sorry, you know, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be home tomorrow because I have
Speaker 1: to do this talk. It makes it seem like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: mom must be going to go do something so dreadful, right,
Speaker 1: the look on her face, her tone, her body language,
Speaker 1: or the apologetic like sorry, guys, I am not going
Speaker 1: to be home tomorrow night. Right. We're not doing them
Speaker 1: any favors by putting on that voice and acting small
Speaker 1: and acting all guilty. So I don't do that. I say,
Speaker 1: guess what, you guys, you know how much I love
Speaker 1: devil thumb Ranch. I get to go there, do a
Speaker 1: talk and go to the spot. It's not amazing, and
Speaker 1: they're just like so used to it that they're just oh,
Speaker 1: good mom. Yeah. And so I'm like, so, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be here tomorrow. I'm missing a basketball game.
Speaker 1: I'm so bummed. Daddy will take videos and I'll look
Speaker 1: at them, call me on the right home. Because of course,
Speaker 1: did I inventory what was I missing? I was missing
Speaker 1: my son's basketball game, and I don't like to miss
Speaker 1: their games. It was a choice, though I was not forced.
Speaker 1: And so in my decision making, I like to also
Speaker 1: communicate not just first to myself why yes this is
Speaker 1: a choice of making, but second to my kids. I
Speaker 1: want to show them that I love my job. I
Speaker 1: want to show them that I value friendships. I want
Speaker 1: to show them that I value my health, not just
Speaker 1: in words, but in action. And so that's really important
Speaker 1: to me. Now I'm going to play the devil's advocate.
Speaker 1: Some people say, well, what if you don't love your
Speaker 1: job and you really do feel like you have to
Speaker 1: do it, this isn't something that you want to do.
Speaker 1: There's still a values based decision there. Guys. I have
Speaker 1: to go on a work trip because mommy has to
Speaker 1: bring home money. So we can eat so that we
Speaker 1: can have Christmas, or we can go on vacation, or
Speaker 1: we could just pay the bills. And so I'm sorry
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna, you know, miss the basketball game, but
Speaker 1: I love you so much and i care about taking
Speaker 1: care of you so much that I'm going to go
Speaker 1: do this and when I come back, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see you. Right. So it might not be as
Speaker 1: Rosie is enthusiastic as my first version, but it's still
Speaker 1: being honest and it still leaves I hope as you
Speaker 1: hear me say that it leaves you with a different
Speaker 1: feeling when you know why your parent is making the
Speaker 1: decision that they are. As you're speaking the two scenarios,
Speaker 1: I just think essentially what you're saying is that you
Speaker 1: can be a mother and still lead an authentic life.
Speaker 1: And when your children see that messaging from you saying
Speaker 1: that you're excited to go on this trip and you'll
Speaker 1: see them when you get back, recognizing and acknowledging the
Speaker 1: things that you're going to be missing, I think that
Speaker 1: also gives them an example of how to be. I
Speaker 1: think of this quote as you're speaking, Cheryl, what's important
Speaker 1: is to create a life that you don't need to
Speaker 1: escape from. We always think about all of these vacations, right,
Speaker 1: like I need to get away, I need to take
Speaker 1: a vacation. But what about changing that notion on his
Speaker 1: head and actually building a life with a partner, with children,
Speaker 1: with all of those responsibilities and obligations, and rather than
Speaker 1: think of them as something heavy, think of it as
Speaker 1: part of a creative process to build a life that
Speaker 1: is so wonderful, enriching and fulfilling with all of those
Speaker 1: time outs. Like you've said that you don't have to
Speaker 1: escape from. I love that quote so much. I did
Speaker 1: track it down and it was a writer named Brianna West,
Speaker 1: So shout out to you, Brianna for that beautiful quote
Speaker 1: that true self care is building a life you don't
Speaker 1: want to escape from. I think what the three of
Speaker 1: us are talking about is, by no means is probably
Speaker 1: any of our lives rosie, perfect, beautiful, lovely every day.
Speaker 1: It is truly the mindset. And I don't want for
Speaker 1: me and for the patients that I work with. I
Speaker 1: don't want those children to feel like they are a burden,
Speaker 1: or that they have taken the joy and the spirit
Speaker 1: out of their parents. Right that, Oh, I used to
Speaker 1: be because I do hear that a lot too. People
Speaker 1: will say to me, you know that I used to
Speaker 1: be a CFO. You know that I used to be
Speaker 1: a teacher. These moms will tell me this, and I
Speaker 1: take it and I hold it for them because I
Speaker 1: know what they're trying to say. What they're trying to
Speaker 1: say is I used to have another identity. If you
Speaker 1: find you're going through multiple seasons of this, at some point,
Speaker 1: you have to know I have to pause. I have
Speaker 1: to do something different. I can still love my children
Speaker 1: and fill in the blank, and maybe if everybody did
Speaker 1: that for themselves, right, I can still love my children
Speaker 1: and fill in the blank. Forget the butt. We all
Speaker 1: know butts are and eraser words we don't want to use.
Speaker 1: But I love them. But and people say that I
Speaker 1: love my kids, but they drive me crazy. I love
Speaker 1: my kids, but I just want to be alone sometimes.
Speaker 1: So I love my kids, and I deserve of a
Speaker 1: night to myself. I love my kids, and whatever you're
Speaker 1: filling the blank is, and I do this. I've been
Speaker 1: doing this for many years with people. I promise if
Speaker 1: people practice it, and not just once, but you practice it,
Speaker 1: you're consistent with it. It will manifest, it will happen,
Speaker 1: and your family will genuinely be healthier and happier because
Speaker 1: of it. I love this exercise that you're walking us
Speaker 1: through instead of the butt put in the end and
Speaker 1: fill in the blank. Is that what you would recommend
Speaker 1: as that first step for the woman who is feeling
Speaker 1: all of those feelings in that cycle of shame and
Speaker 1: guilt and wants to get out but doesn't know how. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: One of the first things that that has come at
Speaker 1: least to my mind right now, is even understanding the
Speaker 1: difference between shame and guilt. If you have shame, that
Speaker 1: is usually a private secret, deep seated feeling that is
Speaker 1: internal that is so scary to release that you don't
Speaker 1: even tell anybody. It's something that is such a burden
Speaker 1: because it's generally kept a secret. That's shame. Guilt is
Speaker 1: usually quite specific. I feel bad about Oh, I feel
Speaker 1: bad I didn't put the kids to bed. I feel
Speaker 1: bad I didn't say I love you when they walked
Speaker 1: out the door. I feel bad I forgot to kid
Speaker 1: my sign my kid up for karate. It's usually you
Speaker 1: feel bad about and then fill that blanket, and and
Speaker 1: that does plague women because they wind up feeling like, gosh,
Speaker 1: well I have like fifteen of those a day. How
Speaker 1: many times can I feel bad about something? And so
Speaker 1: that is a very real experience and gets in the
Speaker 1: way a lot of times from women really growing. But
Speaker 1: I do want to distinguish it from shame, which puts
Speaker 1: you almost in shackles because it's a very lonely, dark experience.
Speaker 1: So I really want people to get in touch with
Speaker 1: that difference between guilt and shame and to know that
Speaker 1: shame needs to be shared in order to really heal
Speaker 1: past it. It's like trauma and guilt is something that
Speaker 1: I think can be really helped by purpose driven talk.
Speaker 1: What is the little voice in your head? What is
Speaker 1: it saying to you? How can I rewrite that narrative?
Speaker 1: What are your values? Do you have a value statement?
Speaker 1: Do you have a family value statement? Keep that as
Speaker 1: your anchor point and ground it. So I just wanted
Speaker 1: to speak to that. Wow, it's like a mic drop.
Speaker 1: You're a living, walking ball of wisdom. I hope your
Speaker 1: kids I can tell them how proud I am of
Speaker 1: you to them keep shining because there's so much what
Speaker 1: you said said today that we can use to apply
Speaker 1: to make our lives better. Thank you, Thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for having me on Hi. It's me Eve.
Speaker 1: Are you a therapist, counselor coach or nutritionists that has
Speaker 1: thought about introducing the fair Play system directly to your clients, Well,
Speaker 1: now you can come and roll in the fair Play Method,
Speaker 1: a new online program that provides you with hands on training,
Speaker 1: a ton of valuable resources, and a community of certified
Speaker 1: professionals who are all part of a greater cultural movement
Speaker 1: for systemic change. Learn more about how you can help
Speaker 1: your clients shift the domestic workload in their own homes
Speaker 1: towards more equity, more fairness, and greater connectivity. Visit fair
Speaker 1: Play method dot com. So, as you may know, now,
Speaker 1: every episode of this podcast ends with an action item
Speaker 1: for you are listeners that we call a time out.
Speaker 1: This is really a time for you to focus on
Speaker 1: yourself and reflect on what you're hearing today, and we're
Speaker 1: starting to come versation first with ourselves and then ultimately
Speaker 1: with those around us. I loved all of Cheryl's insights Leave,
Speaker 1: but probably the most profound one for me is just
Speaker 1: this idea that she would see patient upon patient upon
Speaker 1: patient in a day they'd all be struggling with the
Speaker 1: same thing, these intense negative emotions. They would be feeling
Speaker 1: so isolated, and yet no one was talking to each other.
Speaker 1: And so it's this wild, surreal experience of feeling isolated.
Speaker 1: But it's a collective experience. And Cheryl was the only one,
Speaker 1: through her vantage point of being a clinician, who was
Speaker 1: able to see that pattern. And I'm so glad she's
Speaker 1: speaking about that and really making this a common theme
Speaker 1: and a common thread for all of us, because we're
Speaker 1: all suffering in different ways, and yet we don't talk
Speaker 1: to each other because of our guilt and our shame,
Speaker 1: which are real isolating forces. Oh my god, I think
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be doing this podcast with you. We need
Speaker 1: something else to do. Write like a hole in our head,
Speaker 1: as my grandmother would say. But we were doing this
Speaker 1: for that reason. We want you, we're here listening with
Speaker 1: us to understand that private lives are public issues. That
Speaker 1: the more we stay isolated and in shame as opposed
Speaker 1: to collectively understanding that this is normal, the smaller we are,
Speaker 1: and when when we can become and then we don't
Speaker 1: ski anymore. We we leave our skis at the airport metaphorically.
Speaker 1: So today we are going to build on Dr Cheryl's
Speaker 1: amazing self talk reframe about guilt and shame where we're
Speaker 1: going to bring it to the surface. We're gonna not
Speaker 1: let shame isolate and high us in darkness. So what
Speaker 1: we would like all of you to do, when you
Speaker 1: can safely, is to think of one time in your
Speaker 1: life recently where you felt guilty about something or some
Speaker 1: that's coming up that you feel guilty about doing. So
Speaker 1: you know, a deity in in the past, I would say,
Speaker 1: I know, after a really long day today, tonight, I'm
Speaker 1: going out to dinner with my friends Dara and Susanne.
Speaker 1: And in the past I probably would have said, wow,
Speaker 1: I really feel guilty for heading out to dinner right
Speaker 1: after a really long work day because Seth took the
Speaker 1: kids to school this morning, so I will have not
Speaker 1: seen my kids all day today. What Dr Cheryl is
Speaker 1: asking us to do is to take I feel guilty
Speaker 1: because I feel guilty because I'm not putting my kids
Speaker 1: to bed tonight, and to write down instead I made
Speaker 1: the choice, because I made the decision because so this
Speaker 1: is how it would work. I feel guilty because I'm
Speaker 1: not putting my kids to bed instead, I will write
Speaker 1: down I am making the decision not to put my
Speaker 1: kids to bed because I really believe in friendships, and
Speaker 1: I know that to believe in friendships you have to
Speaker 1: spend time on them and cultivate them. And so that
Speaker 1: is why I'm going to make the decision to go
Speaker 1: out to dinner tonight with Dara and Susanne. Do you
Speaker 1: have one as a practice that we could do for
Speaker 1: our listeners. So yesterday I had a thirty minute window
Speaker 1: and I could have spent those thirty minutes downstairs with
Speaker 1: my family or exercising. And I really needed to exercise,
Speaker 1: like you, I'd had a really long day and I
Speaker 1: just needed to decompress. I felt a lot of guilt
Speaker 1: about making that choice, but I sent a quick text
Speaker 1: to my husband and I said, hey, I need thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: It felt difficult to send it. Immediately after sending that text,
Speaker 1: I felt a great sense of relief and felt a
Speaker 1: sense of power, and I exercised. And then when I
Speaker 1: showed up thirty minutes later for my family, I was present,
Speaker 1: I was happy, and I was a better mom and
Speaker 1: a wife. Dr Cheryl talks a lot about this but
Speaker 1: we can only fill other people's cup when our cup
Speaker 1: is full, and really it's one of the greatest gifts
Speaker 1: we could give to ourselves as moms, as wives, and
Speaker 1: as human beings. So that's what we're working on today
Speaker 1: in our Time Out, but stay tuned for next week,
Speaker 1: where we moved from how we talk to ourselves our
Speaker 1: self talk into how we communicate what we need to others.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to Time Out,
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Podcasts and Hello Sunshine. I'm
Speaker 1: Ev Rodsky, author of the New York Times bestseller fair
Speaker 1: Play and Find Your Unicorn Space. Follow me on social
Speaker 1: media at Eve Rodsky and learn more about our work
Speaker 1: at fair Play Life. And I'm Dr Ad Narukar, Harvard
Speaker 1: physician with a specialty and stress resilience burnout in mental health.
Speaker 1: Follow me on social media at dr add ne rucar
Speaker 1: and find out more about my work at dr add
Speaker 1: dot com. That's d R A d I t I
Speaker 1: dot com. Our Hello Sunshine team is Amanda farrand Aaron
Speaker 1: Stover and Jennifer Yonker. Our I Heart Media team is
Speaker 1: Ali Perry, Jennifer Bassett, and Jessica Cranchich. We hope you
Speaker 1: all love taking a much needed time out with us today.
Speaker 1: Listen and subscribe to Time Out on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.