February 23, 2022 • 39 mins
Do you feel guilty every time you step away from your duties as a partner, a parent, or professional to take some personal time? This week, Eve and Aditi explain where this guilt comes from and why it is so important for everyone to take time to refill their cup. They are joined by Dr. Sheryl Ziegler, therapist and best-selling author of Mommy Burnout, to discuss the different between guilt and shame and how you can practice self-talk to rewrite the guilty narrative that runs through your head. To learn more about Sheryl, visit www.drsherylziegler.com.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
And I'm Doctor Adity in the Rucar, a physician and
medical correspondent with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience,
mental health, and burnout. We're here to peel back to
(00:24):
layers around why it's so easy for society to guard
men's time as if it's diamonds and to treat women's
time as if it's infinite like sands. And whether you
are partnered with or without children, or in a career
where you want more boundaries, this is the place for
you for all family structures. We're here to take a
time out to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim
(00:49):
our time. Hi, Hi d D. I'm going to tell
you another story today. It's a story that I tell
in fair Play that I think about all the time.
It was about a woman that I met that I
(01:10):
called Josie. Since she was a young kid, she identified
herself as a skier because when she was eight years old,
her parents blurred on a winter ski camp for the Poconot,
and she told me about the feeling she felt at
the end of that first day that she was never
going to come off that mountain, that she felt spiritually
(01:31):
connected to the world in a way an eight that
sometimes when we're in uh, I I just recentent eight
year old. He's now ten, but that's when his I
think existential thinking began. And she said she felt really
connected with nature, and as she got older, her love
for the sport just grew. She did everything she could
(01:53):
to ski. She worked after school, she saved money, and
eventually she earned a ski scholarship at the University of Vermont,
where she joined their alpine ski team. And then she
tells me about a day after marriaging kids, where ten
(02:16):
years into her marriage, she was feeling a really deep
loss and longing for her earlier self. She had not
kept up her ski practice, and so she planned a
ski vacation with her family. She was really excited about it.
So the trip happens. They were going to the Poconos.
She was introducing her kids to that first mountain that
(02:36):
she felt that spiritual feeling. But her flight from Tampa
to Philadelphia took longer than expected. There were long delays
in connecting flights that made everyone cranky, and by the
time they started to descend, Josie's two older boys were
(02:59):
being screamed at by the light attendants, taking off their seatbelts,
throwing snats at each other at the flight attendants. She
had her thirteen month old with her and she was
still breastfeeding, and she started to feel like she had
to breastfeed or she was going to get mastadis. Her husband,
usually helpful, was in a terrible mood and they collect
(03:21):
their bags, their double stroller, their booster seats from the
baggage carousel. She's dealing with three melting down kids, a
child on her boob, whining about being hungry, and in
all of the chaos, the thing that she was most
excited to bring with her her beloved skis. She had others,
(03:42):
but she kept this one pair that felt very sentimental
to her. Her beloved skis did not come out from
the luggage on time, and she tells me about the
feeling of saying, I'm going to resign myself to leaving
these skis at the airport. Her child needed to nurse,
(04:03):
she really needed to get to the hotel, and they
left and she says, you know, I really spent that
weekend tending to the baby. My husband tried to get
my kids interested in skiing. They grew bored. They've made snowman.
They spent a lot of the time in the room
(04:24):
and their devices, And she was really reflecting on the
fact that a piece of her was left behind when
she left behind her skis. She ended up eventually got
her skis, she found them, but the whole experience to
her was a metaphor for what it means to love
(04:46):
something so much and then as life goes on, to
leave that piece of you behind. You know, motherhood is
just one facet of a multifaceted life, and for this
woman Josie, skiing was such a large part of her
identity prior to getting married and having children and having
(05:09):
a family, and those skis really represented that part of
her identity which she cherished and valued. She had lost
along the way and was trying to reclaim it on
this trip and passed down that legacy to the next generation.
And so losing the skis was never about the skis.
It was something so much greater than that. It's like
(05:31):
when she lost the skis, she was fighting for that
part of her identity and holding onto it. And what
does it mean to have not just the external pressures
but the internal pressures that we often identify as guilt
(05:51):
and shame. I feel guilty because I want to go
on a ski weekend to maintain my skill set. Who
could even think about doing that? I have young children
in the home. I would be leaving them. I feel
guilty for leaving them. I feel internally shamed by others
if I'm not a perfect parents. I wonder if you
(06:15):
could help us understand these feelings of guilt and shame.
What are they? Where do they come from? You know,
when we think about guilt and shame, guilt is that
feeling of regret over a wrongdoing that someone has done,
typically yourself. Shame is a little different. It's when we
view ourselves as being less than We feel less worthy,
(06:39):
less valuable, and it's usually in response to something external,
like a social construct. So for me, guilt has been
really interesting the thing to think about. It had a
good place in my life for a while. But I
think when I was a parental child, a d D
and growing up but the sabled younger brother and a
(07:01):
mother who worked nights, I think guilt help propel me along.
I think feeling guilty about disappointing my teacher, or feeling
guilty because I didn't complete the homework assignment the best
that I could. It wasn't always a bad thing. Negative
experiences or emotions or feelings can help us be the
(07:25):
catalysts of change, and they can be a positive thing
if it helps you make change and take strides like
you did in your life. When we think about mental health,
these emotions guilt many others. When they start bleeding into
your sense of identity and you're unable to place a
clear border around it, that's when trouble can set in.
(07:47):
So it's not necessarily that having a negative emotion is bad.
It can propel us to a better place, just like
having stress isn't bad. When scientific terms, it's called when
something is adaptive that chal and just when something that
is negative goes from being adaptive to maladaptive that it
no longer serves a positive function. It's hard for you
(08:09):
to get up in the morning, hard for you to
do your work, to engage with people and have meaningful relationships.
That's that red flag, and hopefully our listeners and even
you and I and our friends and colleagues before we
get to that place of danger. There are many tells
and many things we can do before it becomes maladaptive.
(08:32):
We're so excited to talk about all of this with
today's get Dr Cheryl Gonzalez Ziegler. We're meeting her after
the break. Dr Cheryl Gonzalez Ziegler is here with us.
(09:02):
She's the best selling author of Mommy Burnout, the podcast
host of Dr Cheryl's pod Couch I Love That Podcast,
a ted X speaker, and runs a private practice group
in Denver, Colorado. She's an expert on topics related to parenting,
women's mental health, and stress. Thank you so much for
having me. I'm so thrilled to be talking to both
(09:24):
of you. You are a canary in the coal mine,
Cheryl calling these issues out I think when people were
not ready or willing to listen to them. And I
really appreciate you being here because we're talking today about
a subject that you know very well, you speak about often,
and your tips and practical tricks have helped me immensely.
(09:50):
And that topic is guilt and shame and it's relation
to burnout, its relation to keeping women small, not living
in their full power, whether it's outside the home and
their unicorn space. And so I want to know if
we can just start with how you got into your work,
How did you know that burned out mothers should be
(10:14):
the source of an entire book. I'm happy to share
how this came about because it is a little bit
of a story, and it was really organic and took
a couple of years. I have a private practice in
Denver called the Child and Family Therapy Center, So oftentimes
moms would be bringing their kids in and for whatever
different reasons, my kids being bullied, they have anxiety, I
(10:34):
think my kids cutting, they have depression. So they come
in with the presenting problem being something going on with
their child, and then usually by the end of the
intake session they would joke and say, maybe it's me
that needs to be coming into therapy. Then I really
had become evolved to the point where oftentimes about half
(10:55):
the week I would spend with just the parents and
then maybe half the week with kids. And when we
were meeting, I just started noticing certain things. They were saying,
I'm exhausted all the time. Is this all there is?
I waited all my life for this to get married
to have the house, to have the kid. Why am
(11:16):
I not happy? And I noticed the same kinds of
thoughts and questions. And I also noticed that whether they
were a stay at home mom or a working mom,
there was no difference. They were all saying the same thing.
And I was really struck by that. And then I
had my second child. I had this feeling, and it
(11:37):
was pretty quick a couple of weeks after I had him,
like I was drowning underwater, and then I would come
back up and take a deep breath and just to
drown again. And then I thought, Oh, my gosh, I
think this is what those moms have been talking about
for these past years. This is what it actually feels like.
I truly like a breathing issue, like a like I'm
trying to just catch my breath, like I'm trying to
(11:59):
snee go off and spend time in the bathroom the
only time I wasn't being bothered or asked a question
or being tugged at. And so it was at that
moment that I thought to myself, especially when I got
back to work, which by the way, I was like
counting the weeks until I could get back to work
because I was like, oh, working is so much easier
than this. And then when I got back there, I
(12:20):
realized a simple thought. If my three o'clock only knew
how my four o'clock felt, and that the five felt
like the four, I just think the world would be
a better place. And so when I was originally writing
Mommy Burnout, the working title of it was modern Day Motherhood.
And when my agent read it, she said, you're gonna
(12:43):
need to name this condition, Like you can't just say
this is modern day motherhood, and like, but it is,
and she's like, work on that, like what what is
the condition that what's going on? And so really I
started doing research on chronic stress and um stress in general,
and then once I got back to looking at burnout
from a true clinical definition, I thought, wow, this is it.
(13:07):
I think that you can experience burnout in the different
occupations that you hold, in the different roles that you have.
And I thought the definition, which is the physical and
emotional exhaustion that results from feeling like you are unaccomplished
or not good at your job, I thought just matched
motherhood really well. And so that's how it kind of
all came together. You know what's amazing Cheryl is that,
(13:30):
in spite of you having all of the research and
the education is a psychologist, you went through that experience,
you felt all of the same things. It is remarkable
and even to this day, because it's been a lot
of years now that I've been really focused on women's
health issues, chronic stress and burnout. And even though I
am in that world, the only thing that means that
(13:51):
I like to tell people this is I still experienced
stress and then chronic stress. But I just know the
signs and I'm quicker now too correct right, I'm quicker
to say whoa, we have to put the brakes on
right now? Or no? Or I know how to say
no now. I did not know how to say no
a few years ago. That's what I want for people.
(14:11):
I just want them to know the signs, the symptoms,
and the what to do because stress is a normal
part of everyday life. So we have so many questions
for you, and I'm going to start off and I'm
going to quote you. You have said before, just because
you've become a mother doesn't mean you have to surrender
(14:32):
your entire life and all of your dreams. We have
this false conception that to be a good mom means
you must sacrifice who you are as a person. That
simply isn't true, and it's a huge mistake. When I
read that, I had that aha moment the same way
you did with all of your patients. Can you tell
us a little bit about why this thinking is so
(14:53):
common for what you describe as modern motherhood. So when
I was doing research and I look back, it was
so interesting. We probably have all read The Feminine Mystique
by Betty for Dan. I remember when I read it.
I read it in a women's studies class in college.
It didn't strike me personally, so I probably read it,
(15:14):
got my grade and moved on. But when I was
studying the history of motherhood reading books that were written
more like in the seventies and the sixties. If you
just open up that book, chapter one is called the
Problem that has No Name, And I was like, huh,
And if you read it, it's all about the problem
(15:35):
that has no name is the pressure and the stress
that women who become mother's feel. That there's a condition
in which you get married and you have children, and
you think that your role is going to become very clear,
and then all of a sudden you lose your identity
in your children, and by doing so, the vast majority
(15:56):
of women are highly, highly distressed. They lose interest, they
feel that they're not interesting. But essentially they were saying,
at three o'clock in the afternoon, when I know those
kids are going to come home, I take what we
call Mommy's little helper, which we now know our anti
anxiety medication. Right, So Mommy's Little Helper was like xan X,
(16:19):
and they were doing that in the nineteen sixties. So
the modern day version of that is wine America takes
anti anxiety meds by the millions, So we are still
doing that in addition to then socially acceptable drinking that
we all couch as like we need it right on
wine time, Mommy's juice, mommy juice, all these things, all
(16:42):
these code words that we have for I'm so stressed
that I need to alter my chemistry and my reality
to just get through the afternoon. So when we not
only get the message that well, that's just part of
being a woman, and you know, if you have a
problem with it, we'll like just something. Just take a pill,
or take a little CBD, or you have a little
(17:04):
marijuana or whatever. It's going to be just mellow out
if we keep perpetuating that, and we keep ascribing to
that this is the legacy that we're leaving our children,
which is motherhood is in some ways so stressful and
you lose your identity that you have to numb your
way through it. And I really want to change that narrative.
(17:28):
It doesn't need to be that way. But I think
people don't know the way out of that because that's
not something that's really shown to us. We don't know
the way. We have so many forms to self medicate,
and it's just because we're just trying to power through
and come out, like you said, rather than feel all
of those feelings. Absolutely, you just reminded me when you
said that. But I didn't mention social media, right, that's
(17:51):
a very modern way that people come out binging on Netflix.
It's just anything that in moderation can be perfectly healthy
or fine, but anything that takes us consciously, purposely away
and out of our reality should be a yellow to
a red flag to somebody that, wait, maybe you actually
(18:11):
do need to practice presence and see what's going on here.
To me, the new sort of epidemic is losing ourselves
in our feeds and our screens. There's a metaphorical storm
going on. But can we learn to dance in the
rain as opposed to drown in it? And you have
some great practical advice for sort of first steps for
(18:31):
recognition about I want to live more at the intersection
of meaning and happiness because we know that meaning without
happiness is a lot of what we're talking about here.
Being defined by our roles does bring meaning. I think
we'd all hear as parents say that we have meaning.
But when three o'clock comes around, if I'm holding the
afternoon card or the weekends, oh my god it you know,
(18:52):
my heart pounds on Friday night. So if we want
to make our leisure time more nutritious, and we want
to understand that life is dancing in the rain, we're
not telling you it's going to be you know, cupcakes
and rainbows. But where would you suggest people start. It's
really hard, right because on the one hand, you say, oh, well,
you know, I don't want to see parents numbing out,
(19:15):
And on the other hand, self care. You must do
self care. You must put on your oxygen mask. Right,
So if you look at those things, I can see
how somebody might say, well, which is it, because maybe
my self care is binging on Netflix or scrolling on
Instagram and looking at whatever beautiful homes or whatever it
is that you're looking at. So I like when people
(19:35):
ask those questions and I'm like, okay, good, let's have
a conversation about this. Self care is truly something that
is subjective. I don't get to tell you, and you
don't get to tell me what my self care is
by the day or maybe even by the hour. We
know when somebody has a young baby, self care is
taken a shower. We know that, right. We know that
(19:57):
when you are maybe nursing, self care is putting clean braun.
But then you get older and I'm not nursing anymore,
So self care isn't putting a clean braun for me anymore.
Every age and stage as my role as a mother
has something different. Going away or spending any time with
any one of my girlfriends is probably my greatest self
(20:18):
care area, and I do that. People will say to me, well,
how do you do that? Don't you feel bad? I'm
absolutely not, because when I get my time to be social,
to go out to just relax and not if someone
you know, ask me questions, tugging on me when I
come home. I am definitely a better mother, I am
(20:41):
a better therapist, I'm a better wife, I'm a better everything.
Because I'm acutely aware, like I'm running on empty. That's
what burnout is. You're running on empty. If I allow
myself to continue to run on fumes, guess what that
one dinner, happy hour or weekend with my friends will
not fill me up. So sometimes people want to know
(21:02):
what's the difference, Like, how do you know when you're
stressed or when you're burned out? When you're stressed, going
and doing some of the self care stuff will fill
you back up. When you're burned out, that doesn't cut it.
And now all of a sudden, you realize, oh, I
have a major life adjustment to do. Now, it's not
a minor one. Oh can I get away for a night,
it's beyond that, or even within your relationship, maybe one
(21:24):
day at night actually is not going to cut it. Right.
So I am acutely aware that this needs to be
something that I do often. It needs to be something
that is very attuned to where I'm at right. Sometimes
I need quiet time, but then the next week I
want to be out with maybe one friend or maybe
a group of friends, and so I do that, and
(21:45):
I make that commitment no matter what. That's self care
in the intersection of guilt and shame because I will
not even think twice about doing any of these things
because I know that everybody benefits from it. So when
I make decisions, and Eve talks about this as well,
I make values driven decisions. Right, my value is mental health,
(22:12):
of course. Right. So if I were to go out,
and let's say I were to drink too much, and
then the whole next day I have a hangover, I
can't even hardly function with my family, I feel like crap,
I have a headache laying on a couch, that actually,
for me is not a values based decision. That wasn't
a great decision because it didn't feel me up in
order to be able to give and receive with my
family the next day. But if I go out, I
(22:34):
have a good time, I dance the next day, A
values driven decision for me says, now I'm ready to
be really present with you. I got I got my
time alone or with friends or whatever, and now I'm
here for you kids, versus feeling resentful or feeling a
crap or feeling tired. And so that's how I make
decisions and it helps me a lot with guilt and shame.
(22:56):
I'll tell you one more story. Last Monday, I did
a talk away and it was in driving distance, but
it was at a gorgeous spa at a ranch. And
so they're like, oh, yeah, well, you could just drive
up in the morning. It's like an hour and a
half from Denver. You could be back in the afternoon.
I was like, maybe you want me to come for
my night. I gotta come the day before I got
(23:19):
my night and it was so beautiful, right, And I
will tell you at a tinge of like, oh, was
this a little too indulgent because I didn't have to
be away for a night. And I was like, no, no, no, no, right,
So I'll have the feelings like anybody else. But I'm
quick and I'm like, why did you make this decision?
I go back to my values. Why did you make
this decision? Because it's gonna be good for my health.
(23:40):
I got to do yoga, I took a beautiful walk,
I soaked in the sun that was in the mountains,
and I even had quiet time to myself to read
a physical book. If I have a tinge of guilt,
I go back to is this in line with my values?
Am I in integrity? This happened to me. Also on
Monday night, my friend invited me to see a screening
(24:00):
of West Side Story. So at first I was like
that again, say I could watch it later, I can
see it in the theaters. I don't have to go now.
I had to record my audiobook on Sunday, so I
hadn't seen Anna in a while. So blah blah blah.
Listening to myself, you know, I feel guilty. I feel guilty.
And then finally I made the decision not to put
Anna to bed. I'm making the choice not to put
(24:22):
Anna to bed because A I really want to see
West Side Story. I love musicals, especially when they're representing
the people's lived experience in a more authentic way. And
number two, my good friend Christie is the producer of
this movie, and I really want to support her. And
it was the best. It was the best that I'm
still thinking about the movie. I looked up Jerome Robbin's
(24:45):
choreography to do a couple of Unicorn space eight counts,
and I'm still filled up by that two hours and
I couldn't put Anna to bed and feel that. So
I made that choice because and I think that reframe
that you have us do instead of the self talk.
I feel guilty because to saying I made the decision,
(25:06):
because I made that choice, because it's so powerful, because
then you can communicate it to your children without ambivalence. Absolutely,
I'm gonna really try to highlight this seat of saying
to my kids, I have to go do this talk, right,
and everything about our body language changes and we act
so like we're being tortured, like I'm sorry, you know, guys,
I'm not going to be home tomorrow because I have
(25:27):
to do this talk. It makes it seem like, oh, well,
mom must be going to go do something so dreadful, right,
the look on her face, her tone, her body language,
or the apologetic like sorry, guys, I am not going
to be home tomorrow night. Right. We're not doing them
any favors by putting on that voice and acting small
and acting all guilty. So I don't do that. I say,
(25:50):
guess what, you guys, you know how much I love
devil thumb Ranch. I get to go there, do a
talk and go to the spot. It's not amazing, and
they're just like so used to it that they're just oh,
good mom. Yeah. And so I'm like, so, yeah, I'm
not going to be here tomorrow. I'm missing a basketball game.
I'm so bummed. Daddy will take videos and I'll look
at them, call me on the right home. Because of course,
(26:10):
did I inventory what was I missing? I was missing
my son's basketball game, and I don't like to miss
their games. It was a choice, though I was not forced.
And so in my decision making, I like to also
communicate not just first to myself why yes this is
a choice of making, but second to my kids. I
want to show them that I love my job. I
want to show them that I value friendships. I want
(26:32):
to show them that I value my health, not just
in words, but in action. And so that's really important
to me. Now I'm going to play the devil's advocate.
Some people say, well, what if you don't love your
job and you really do feel like you have to
do it, this isn't something that you want to do.
There's still a values based decision there. Guys. I have
to go on a work trip because mommy has to
(26:56):
bring home money. So we can eat so that we
can have Christmas, or we can go on vacation, or
we could just pay the bills. And so I'm sorry
that I'm gonna, you know, miss the basketball game, but
I love you so much and i care about taking
care of you so much that I'm going to go
do this and when I come back, I can't wait
to see you. Right. So it might not be as
Rosie is enthusiastic as my first version, but it's still
(27:19):
being honest and it still leaves I hope as you
hear me say that it leaves you with a different
feeling when you know why your parent is making the
decision that they are. As you're speaking the two scenarios,
I just think essentially what you're saying is that you
can be a mother and still lead an authentic life.
And when your children see that messaging from you saying
(27:40):
that you're excited to go on this trip and you'll
see them when you get back, recognizing and acknowledging the
things that you're going to be missing, I think that
also gives them an example of how to be. I
think of this quote as you're speaking, Cheryl, what's important
is to create a life that you don't need to
escape from. We always think about all of these vacations, right,
(28:02):
like I need to get away, I need to take
a vacation. But what about changing that notion on his
head and actually building a life with a partner, with children,
with all of those responsibilities and obligations, and rather than
think of them as something heavy, think of it as
part of a creative process to build a life that
is so wonderful, enriching and fulfilling with all of those
(28:25):
time outs. Like you've said that you don't have to
escape from. I love that quote so much. I did
track it down and it was a writer named Brianna West,
So shout out to you, Brianna for that beautiful quote
that true self care is building a life you don't
want to escape from. I think what the three of
us are talking about is, by no means is probably
(28:46):
any of our lives rosie, perfect, beautiful, lovely every day.
It is truly the mindset. And I don't want for
me and for the patients that I work with. I
don't want those children to feel like they are a burden,
or that they have taken the joy and the spirit
(29:07):
out of their parents. Right that, Oh, I used to
be because I do hear that a lot too. People
will say to me, you know that I used to
be a CFO. You know that I used to be
a teacher. These moms will tell me this, and I
take it and I hold it for them because I
know what they're trying to say. What they're trying to
say is I used to have another identity. If you
find you're going through multiple seasons of this, at some point,
(29:30):
you have to know I have to pause. I have
to do something different. I can still love my children
and fill in the blank, and maybe if everybody did
that for themselves, right, I can still love my children
and fill in the blank. Forget the butt. We all
know butts are and eraser words we don't want to use.
But I love them. But and people say that I
(29:50):
love my kids, but they drive me crazy. I love
my kids, but I just want to be alone sometimes.
So I love my kids, and I deserve of a
night to myself. I love my kids, and whatever you're
filling the blank is, and I do this. I've been
doing this for many years with people. I promise if
people practice it, and not just once, but you practice it,
(30:12):
you're consistent with it. It will manifest, it will happen,
and your family will genuinely be healthier and happier because
of it. I love this exercise that you're walking us
through instead of the butt put in the end and
fill in the blank. Is that what you would recommend
as that first step for the woman who is feeling
(30:33):
all of those feelings in that cycle of shame and
guilt and wants to get out but doesn't know how. Absolutely.
One of the first things that that has come at
least to my mind right now, is even understanding the
difference between shame and guilt. If you have shame, that
(30:54):
is usually a private secret, deep seated feeling that is
internal that is so scary to release that you don't
even tell anybody. It's something that is such a burden
because it's generally kept a secret. That's shame. Guilt is
(31:15):
usually quite specific. I feel bad about Oh, I feel
bad I didn't put the kids to bed. I feel
bad I didn't say I love you when they walked
out the door. I feel bad I forgot to kid
my sign my kid up for karate. It's usually you
feel bad about and then fill that blanket, and and
that does plague women because they wind up feeling like, gosh,
(31:35):
well I have like fifteen of those a day. How
many times can I feel bad about something? And so
that is a very real experience and gets in the
way a lot of times from women really growing. But
I do want to distinguish it from shame, which puts
you almost in shackles because it's a very lonely, dark experience.
(31:57):
So I really want people to get in touch with
that difference between guilt and shame and to know that
shame needs to be shared in order to really heal
past it. It's like trauma and guilt is something that
I think can be really helped by purpose driven talk.
What is the little voice in your head? What is
(32:19):
it saying to you? How can I rewrite that narrative?
What are your values? Do you have a value statement?
Do you have a family value statement? Keep that as
your anchor point and ground it. So I just wanted
to speak to that. Wow, it's like a mic drop.
You're a living, walking ball of wisdom. I hope your
kids I can tell them how proud I am of
(32:41):
you to them keep shining because there's so much what
you said said today that we can use to apply
to make our lives better. Thank you, Thank you guys
so much for having me on Hi. It's me Eve.
(33:07):
Are you a therapist, counselor coach or nutritionists that has
thought about introducing the fair Play system directly to your clients, Well,
now you can come and roll in the fair Play Method,
a new online program that provides you with hands on training,
a ton of valuable resources, and a community of certified
professionals who are all part of a greater cultural movement
(33:27):
for systemic change. Learn more about how you can help
your clients shift the domestic workload in their own homes
towards more equity, more fairness, and greater connectivity. Visit fair
Play method dot com. So, as you may know, now,
every episode of this podcast ends with an action item
(33:50):
for you are listeners that we call a time out.
This is really a time for you to focus on
yourself and reflect on what you're hearing today, and we're
starting to come versation first with ourselves and then ultimately
with those around us. I loved all of Cheryl's insights Leave,
but probably the most profound one for me is just
(34:10):
this idea that she would see patient upon patient upon
patient in a day they'd all be struggling with the
same thing, these intense negative emotions. They would be feeling
so isolated, and yet no one was talking to each other.
And so it's this wild, surreal experience of feeling isolated.
But it's a collective experience. And Cheryl was the only one,
(34:35):
through her vantage point of being a clinician, who was
able to see that pattern. And I'm so glad she's
speaking about that and really making this a common theme
and a common thread for all of us, because we're
all suffering in different ways, and yet we don't talk
to each other because of our guilt and our shame,
which are real isolating forces. Oh my god, I think
(34:57):
I wouldn't be doing this podcast with you. We need
something else to do. Write like a hole in our head,
as my grandmother would say. But we were doing this
for that reason. We want you, we're here listening with
us to understand that private lives are public issues. That
the more we stay isolated and in shame as opposed
(35:20):
to collectively understanding that this is normal, the smaller we are,
and when when we can become and then we don't
ski anymore. We we leave our skis at the airport metaphorically.
So today we are going to build on Dr Cheryl's
amazing self talk reframe about guilt and shame where we're
(35:43):
going to bring it to the surface. We're gonna not
let shame isolate and high us in darkness. So what
we would like all of you to do, when you
can safely, is to think of one time in your
life recently where you felt guilty about something or some
that's coming up that you feel guilty about doing. So
(36:05):
you know, a deity in in the past, I would say,
I know, after a really long day today, tonight, I'm
going out to dinner with my friends Dara and Susanne.
And in the past I probably would have said, wow,
I really feel guilty for heading out to dinner right
after a really long work day because Seth took the
kids to school this morning, so I will have not
(36:26):
seen my kids all day today. What Dr Cheryl is
asking us to do is to take I feel guilty
because I feel guilty because I'm not putting my kids
to bed tonight, and to write down instead I made
the choice, because I made the decision because so this
is how it would work. I feel guilty because I'm
(36:47):
not putting my kids to bed instead, I will write
down I am making the decision not to put my
kids to bed because I really believe in friendships, and
I know that to believe in friendships you have to
spend time on them and cultivate them. And so that
is why I'm going to make the decision to go
out to dinner tonight with Dara and Susanne. Do you
(37:09):
have one as a practice that we could do for
our listeners. So yesterday I had a thirty minute window
and I could have spent those thirty minutes downstairs with
my family or exercising. And I really needed to exercise,
(37:29):
like you, I'd had a really long day and I
just needed to decompress. I felt a lot of guilt
about making that choice, but I sent a quick text
to my husband and I said, hey, I need thirty minutes.
It felt difficult to send it. Immediately after sending that text,
(37:51):
I felt a great sense of relief and felt a
sense of power, and I exercised. And then when I
showed up thirty minutes later for my family, I was present,
I was happy, and I was a better mom and
a wife. Dr Cheryl talks a lot about this but
we can only fill other people's cup when our cup
(38:13):
is full, and really it's one of the greatest gifts
we could give to ourselves as moms, as wives, and
as human beings. So that's what we're working on today
in our Time Out, but stay tuned for next week,
where we moved from how we talk to ourselves our
self talk into how we communicate what we need to others.
(38:35):
Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to Time Out,
a production of I Heart Podcasts and Hello Sunshine. I'm
Ev Rodsky, author of the New York Times bestseller fair
Play and Find Your Unicorn Space. Follow me on social
media at Eve Rodsky and learn more about our work
at fair Play Life. And I'm Dr Ad Narukar, Harvard
(38:57):
physician with a specialty and stress resilience burnout in mental health.
Follow me on social media at dr add ne rucar
and find out more about my work at dr add
dot com. That's d R A d I t I
dot com. Our Hello Sunshine team is Amanda farrand Aaron
Stover and Jennifer Yonker. Our I Heart Media team is
(39:20):
Ali Perry, Jennifer Bassett, and Jessica Cranchich. We hope you
all love taking a much needed time out with us today.
Listen and subscribe to Time Out on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
And I'm Doctor Adity in the Rucar, a physician and
medical correspondent with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience,
mental health, and burnout. We're here to peel back to
(00:24):
layers around why it's so easy for society to guard
men's time as if it's diamonds and to treat women's
time as if it's infinite like sands. And whether you
are partnered with or without children, or in a career
where you want more boundaries, this is the place for
you for all family structures. We're here to take a
time out to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim
(00:49):
our time. Hi, Hi d D. I'm going to tell
you another story today. It's a story that I tell
in fair Play that I think about all the time.
It was about a woman that I met that I
(01:10):
called Josie. Since she was a young kid, she identified
herself as a skier because when she was eight years old,
her parents blurred on a winter ski camp for the Poconot,
and she told me about the feeling she felt at
the end of that first day that she was never
going to come off that mountain, that she felt spiritually
(01:31):
connected to the world in a way an eight that
sometimes when we're in uh, I I just recentent eight
year old. He's now ten, but that's when his I
think existential thinking began. And she said she felt really
connected with nature, and as she got older, her love
for the sport just grew. She did everything she could
(01:53):
to ski. She worked after school, she saved money, and
eventually she earned a ski scholarship at the University of Vermont,
where she joined their alpine ski team. And then she
tells me about a day after marriaging kids, where ten
(02:16):
years into her marriage, she was feeling a really deep
loss and longing for her earlier self. She had not
kept up her ski practice, and so she planned a
ski vacation with her family. She was really excited about it.
So the trip happens. They were going to the Poconos.
She was introducing her kids to that first mountain that
(02:36):
she felt that spiritual feeling. But her flight from Tampa
to Philadelphia took longer than expected. There were long delays
in connecting flights that made everyone cranky, and by the
time they started to descend, Josie's two older boys were
(02:59):
being screamed at by the light attendants, taking off their seatbelts,
throwing snats at each other at the flight attendants. She
had her thirteen month old with her and she was
still breastfeeding, and she started to feel like she had
to breastfeed or she was going to get mastadis. Her husband,
usually helpful, was in a terrible mood and they collect
(03:21):
their bags, their double stroller, their booster seats from the
baggage carousel. She's dealing with three melting down kids, a
child on her boob, whining about being hungry, and in
all of the chaos, the thing that she was most
excited to bring with her her beloved skis. She had others,
(03:42):
but she kept this one pair that felt very sentimental
to her. Her beloved skis did not come out from
the luggage on time, and she tells me about the
feeling of saying, I'm going to resign myself to leaving
these skis at the airport. Her child needed to nurse,
(04:03):
she really needed to get to the hotel, and they
left and she says, you know, I really spent that
weekend tending to the baby. My husband tried to get
my kids interested in skiing. They grew bored. They've made snowman.
They spent a lot of the time in the room
(04:24):
and their devices, And she was really reflecting on the
fact that a piece of her was left behind when
she left behind her skis. She ended up eventually got
her skis, she found them, but the whole experience to
her was a metaphor for what it means to love
(04:46):
something so much and then as life goes on, to
leave that piece of you behind. You know, motherhood is
just one facet of a multifaceted life, and for this
woman Josie, skiing was such a large part of her
identity prior to getting married and having children and having
(05:09):
a family, and those skis really represented that part of
her identity which she cherished and valued. She had lost
along the way and was trying to reclaim it on
this trip and passed down that legacy to the next generation.
And so losing the skis was never about the skis.
It was something so much greater than that. It's like
(05:31):
when she lost the skis, she was fighting for that
part of her identity and holding onto it. And what
does it mean to have not just the external pressures
but the internal pressures that we often identify as guilt
(05:51):
and shame. I feel guilty because I want to go
on a ski weekend to maintain my skill set. Who
could even think about doing that? I have young children
in the home. I would be leaving them. I feel
guilty for leaving them. I feel internally shamed by others
if I'm not a perfect parents. I wonder if you
(06:15):
could help us understand these feelings of guilt and shame.
What are they? Where do they come from? You know,
when we think about guilt and shame, guilt is that
feeling of regret over a wrongdoing that someone has done,
typically yourself. Shame is a little different. It's when we
view ourselves as being less than We feel less worthy,
(06:39):
less valuable, and it's usually in response to something external,
like a social construct. So for me, guilt has been
really interesting the thing to think about. It had a
good place in my life for a while. But I
think when I was a parental child, a d D
and growing up but the sabled younger brother and a
(07:01):
mother who worked nights, I think guilt help propel me along.
I think feeling guilty about disappointing my teacher, or feeling
guilty because I didn't complete the homework assignment the best
that I could. It wasn't always a bad thing. Negative
experiences or emotions or feelings can help us be the
(07:25):
catalysts of change, and they can be a positive thing
if it helps you make change and take strides like
you did in your life. When we think about mental health,
these emotions guilt many others. When they start bleeding into
your sense of identity and you're unable to place a
clear border around it, that's when trouble can set in.
(07:47):
So it's not necessarily that having a negative emotion is bad.
It can propel us to a better place, just like
having stress isn't bad. When scientific terms, it's called when
something is adaptive that chal and just when something that
is negative goes from being adaptive to maladaptive that it
no longer serves a positive function. It's hard for you
(08:09):
to get up in the morning, hard for you to
do your work, to engage with people and have meaningful relationships.
That's that red flag, and hopefully our listeners and even
you and I and our friends and colleagues before we
get to that place of danger. There are many tells
and many things we can do before it becomes maladaptive.
(08:32):
We're so excited to talk about all of this with
today's get Dr Cheryl Gonzalez Ziegler. We're meeting her after
the break. Dr Cheryl Gonzalez Ziegler is here with us.
(09:02):
She's the best selling author of Mommy Burnout, the podcast
host of Dr Cheryl's pod Couch I Love That Podcast,
a ted X speaker, and runs a private practice group
in Denver, Colorado. She's an expert on topics related to parenting,
women's mental health, and stress. Thank you so much for
having me. I'm so thrilled to be talking to both
(09:24):
of you. You are a canary in the coal mine,
Cheryl calling these issues out I think when people were
not ready or willing to listen to them. And I
really appreciate you being here because we're talking today about
a subject that you know very well, you speak about often,
and your tips and practical tricks have helped me immensely.
(09:50):
And that topic is guilt and shame and it's relation
to burnout, its relation to keeping women small, not living
in their full power, whether it's outside the home and
their unicorn space. And so I want to know if
we can just start with how you got into your work,
How did you know that burned out mothers should be
(10:14):
the source of an entire book. I'm happy to share
how this came about because it is a little bit
of a story, and it was really organic and took
a couple of years. I have a private practice in
Denver called the Child and Family Therapy Center, So oftentimes
moms would be bringing their kids in and for whatever
different reasons, my kids being bullied, they have anxiety, I
(10:34):
think my kids cutting, they have depression. So they come
in with the presenting problem being something going on with
their child, and then usually by the end of the
intake session they would joke and say, maybe it's me
that needs to be coming into therapy. Then I really
had become evolved to the point where oftentimes about half
(10:55):
the week I would spend with just the parents and
then maybe half the week with kids. And when we
were meeting, I just started noticing certain things. They were saying,
I'm exhausted all the time. Is this all there is?
I waited all my life for this to get married
to have the house, to have the kid. Why am
(11:16):
I not happy? And I noticed the same kinds of
thoughts and questions. And I also noticed that whether they
were a stay at home mom or a working mom,
there was no difference. They were all saying the same thing.
And I was really struck by that. And then I
had my second child. I had this feeling, and it
(11:37):
was pretty quick a couple of weeks after I had him,
like I was drowning underwater, and then I would come
back up and take a deep breath and just to
drown again. And then I thought, Oh, my gosh, I
think this is what those moms have been talking about
for these past years. This is what it actually feels like.
I truly like a breathing issue, like a like I'm
trying to just catch my breath, like I'm trying to
(11:59):
snee go off and spend time in the bathroom the
only time I wasn't being bothered or asked a question
or being tugged at. And so it was at that
moment that I thought to myself, especially when I got
back to work, which by the way, I was like
counting the weeks until I could get back to work
because I was like, oh, working is so much easier
than this. And then when I got back there, I
(12:20):
realized a simple thought. If my three o'clock only knew
how my four o'clock felt, and that the five felt
like the four, I just think the world would be
a better place. And so when I was originally writing
Mommy Burnout, the working title of it was modern Day Motherhood.
And when my agent read it, she said, you're gonna
(12:43):
need to name this condition, Like you can't just say
this is modern day motherhood, and like, but it is,
and she's like, work on that, like what what is
the condition that what's going on? And so really I
started doing research on chronic stress and um stress in general,
and then once I got back to looking at burnout
from a true clinical definition, I thought, wow, this is it.
(13:07):
I think that you can experience burnout in the different
occupations that you hold, in the different roles that you have.
And I thought the definition, which is the physical and
emotional exhaustion that results from feeling like you are unaccomplished
or not good at your job, I thought just matched
motherhood really well. And so that's how it kind of
all came together. You know what's amazing Cheryl is that,
(13:30):
in spite of you having all of the research and
the education is a psychologist, you went through that experience,
you felt all of the same things. It is remarkable
and even to this day, because it's been a lot
of years now that I've been really focused on women's
health issues, chronic stress and burnout. And even though I
am in that world, the only thing that means that
(13:51):
I like to tell people this is I still experienced
stress and then chronic stress. But I just know the
signs and I'm quicker now too correct right, I'm quicker
to say whoa, we have to put the brakes on
right now? Or no? Or I know how to say
no now. I did not know how to say no
a few years ago. That's what I want for people.
(14:11):
I just want them to know the signs, the symptoms,
and the what to do because stress is a normal
part of everyday life. So we have so many questions
for you, and I'm going to start off and I'm
going to quote you. You have said before, just because
you've become a mother doesn't mean you have to surrender
(14:32):
your entire life and all of your dreams. We have
this false conception that to be a good mom means
you must sacrifice who you are as a person. That
simply isn't true, and it's a huge mistake. When I
read that, I had that aha moment the same way
you did with all of your patients. Can you tell
us a little bit about why this thinking is so
(14:53):
common for what you describe as modern motherhood. So when
I was doing research and I look back, it was
so interesting. We probably have all read The Feminine Mystique
by Betty for Dan. I remember when I read it.
I read it in a women's studies class in college.
It didn't strike me personally, so I probably read it,
(15:14):
got my grade and moved on. But when I was
studying the history of motherhood reading books that were written
more like in the seventies and the sixties. If you
just open up that book, chapter one is called the
Problem that has No Name, And I was like, huh,
And if you read it, it's all about the problem
(15:35):
that has no name is the pressure and the stress
that women who become mother's feel. That there's a condition
in which you get married and you have children, and
you think that your role is going to become very clear,
and then all of a sudden you lose your identity
in your children, and by doing so, the vast majority
(15:56):
of women are highly, highly distressed. They lose interest, they
feel that they're not interesting. But essentially they were saying,
at three o'clock in the afternoon, when I know those
kids are going to come home, I take what we
call Mommy's little helper, which we now know our anti
anxiety medication. Right, So Mommy's Little Helper was like xan X,
(16:19):
and they were doing that in the nineteen sixties. So
the modern day version of that is wine America takes
anti anxiety meds by the millions, So we are still
doing that in addition to then socially acceptable drinking that
we all couch as like we need it right on
wine time, Mommy's juice, mommy juice, all these things, all
(16:42):
these code words that we have for I'm so stressed
that I need to alter my chemistry and my reality
to just get through the afternoon. So when we not
only get the message that well, that's just part of
being a woman, and you know, if you have a
problem with it, we'll like just something. Just take a pill,
or take a little CBD, or you have a little
(17:04):
marijuana or whatever. It's going to be just mellow out
if we keep perpetuating that, and we keep ascribing to
that this is the legacy that we're leaving our children,
which is motherhood is in some ways so stressful and
you lose your identity that you have to numb your
way through it. And I really want to change that narrative.
(17:28):
It doesn't need to be that way. But I think
people don't know the way out of that because that's
not something that's really shown to us. We don't know
the way. We have so many forms to self medicate,
and it's just because we're just trying to power through
and come out, like you said, rather than feel all
of those feelings. Absolutely, you just reminded me when you
said that. But I didn't mention social media, right, that's
(17:51):
a very modern way that people come out binging on Netflix.
It's just anything that in moderation can be perfectly healthy
or fine, but anything that takes us consciously, purposely away
and out of our reality should be a yellow to
a red flag to somebody that, wait, maybe you actually
(18:11):
do need to practice presence and see what's going on here.
To me, the new sort of epidemic is losing ourselves
in our feeds and our screens. There's a metaphorical storm
going on. But can we learn to dance in the
rain as opposed to drown in it? And you have
some great practical advice for sort of first steps for
(18:31):
recognition about I want to live more at the intersection
of meaning and happiness because we know that meaning without
happiness is a lot of what we're talking about here.
Being defined by our roles does bring meaning. I think
we'd all hear as parents say that we have meaning.
But when three o'clock comes around, if I'm holding the
afternoon card or the weekends, oh my god it you know,
(18:52):
my heart pounds on Friday night. So if we want
to make our leisure time more nutritious, and we want
to understand that life is dancing in the rain, we're
not telling you it's going to be you know, cupcakes
and rainbows. But where would you suggest people start. It's
really hard, right because on the one hand, you say, oh, well,
you know, I don't want to see parents numbing out,
(19:15):
And on the other hand, self care. You must do
self care. You must put on your oxygen mask. Right,
So if you look at those things, I can see
how somebody might say, well, which is it, because maybe
my self care is binging on Netflix or scrolling on
Instagram and looking at whatever beautiful homes or whatever it
is that you're looking at. So I like when people
(19:35):
ask those questions and I'm like, okay, good, let's have
a conversation about this. Self care is truly something that
is subjective. I don't get to tell you, and you
don't get to tell me what my self care is
by the day or maybe even by the hour. We
know when somebody has a young baby, self care is
taken a shower. We know that, right. We know that
(19:57):
when you are maybe nursing, self care is putting clean braun.
But then you get older and I'm not nursing anymore,
So self care isn't putting a clean braun for me anymore.
Every age and stage as my role as a mother
has something different. Going away or spending any time with
any one of my girlfriends is probably my greatest self
(20:18):
care area, and I do that. People will say to me, well,
how do you do that? Don't you feel bad? I'm
absolutely not, because when I get my time to be social,
to go out to just relax and not if someone
you know, ask me questions, tugging on me when I
come home. I am definitely a better mother, I am
(20:41):
a better therapist, I'm a better wife, I'm a better everything.
Because I'm acutely aware, like I'm running on empty. That's
what burnout is. You're running on empty. If I allow
myself to continue to run on fumes, guess what that
one dinner, happy hour or weekend with my friends will
not fill me up. So sometimes people want to know
(21:02):
what's the difference, Like, how do you know when you're
stressed or when you're burned out? When you're stressed, going
and doing some of the self care stuff will fill
you back up. When you're burned out, that doesn't cut it.
And now all of a sudden, you realize, oh, I
have a major life adjustment to do. Now, it's not
a minor one. Oh can I get away for a night,
it's beyond that, or even within your relationship, maybe one
(21:24):
day at night actually is not going to cut it. Right.
So I am acutely aware that this needs to be
something that I do often. It needs to be something
that is very attuned to where I'm at right. Sometimes
I need quiet time, but then the next week I
want to be out with maybe one friend or maybe
a group of friends, and so I do that, and
(21:45):
I make that commitment no matter what. That's self care
in the intersection of guilt and shame because I will
not even think twice about doing any of these things
because I know that everybody benefits from it. So when
I make decisions, and Eve talks about this as well,
I make values driven decisions. Right, my value is mental health,
(22:12):
of course. Right. So if I were to go out,
and let's say I were to drink too much, and
then the whole next day I have a hangover, I
can't even hardly function with my family, I feel like crap,
I have a headache laying on a couch, that actually,
for me is not a values based decision. That wasn't
a great decision because it didn't feel me up in
order to be able to give and receive with my
family the next day. But if I go out, I
(22:34):
have a good time, I dance the next day, A
values driven decision for me says, now I'm ready to
be really present with you. I got I got my
time alone or with friends or whatever, and now I'm
here for you kids, versus feeling resentful or feeling a
crap or feeling tired. And so that's how I make
decisions and it helps me a lot with guilt and shame.
(22:56):
I'll tell you one more story. Last Monday, I did
a talk away and it was in driving distance, but
it was at a gorgeous spa at a ranch. And
so they're like, oh, yeah, well, you could just drive
up in the morning. It's like an hour and a
half from Denver. You could be back in the afternoon.
I was like, maybe you want me to come for
my night. I gotta come the day before I got
(23:19):
my night and it was so beautiful, right, And I
will tell you at a tinge of like, oh, was
this a little too indulgent because I didn't have to
be away for a night. And I was like, no, no, no, no, right,
So I'll have the feelings like anybody else. But I'm
quick and I'm like, why did you make this decision?
I go back to my values. Why did you make
this decision? Because it's gonna be good for my health.
(23:40):
I got to do yoga, I took a beautiful walk,
I soaked in the sun that was in the mountains,
and I even had quiet time to myself to read
a physical book. If I have a tinge of guilt,
I go back to is this in line with my values?
Am I in integrity? This happened to me. Also on
Monday night, my friend invited me to see a screening
(24:00):
of West Side Story. So at first I was like
that again, say I could watch it later, I can
see it in the theaters. I don't have to go now.
I had to record my audiobook on Sunday, so I
hadn't seen Anna in a while. So blah blah blah.
Listening to myself, you know, I feel guilty. I feel guilty.
And then finally I made the decision not to put
Anna to bed. I'm making the choice not to put
(24:22):
Anna to bed because A I really want to see
West Side Story. I love musicals, especially when they're representing
the people's lived experience in a more authentic way. And
number two, my good friend Christie is the producer of
this movie, and I really want to support her. And
it was the best. It was the best that I'm
still thinking about the movie. I looked up Jerome Robbin's
(24:45):
choreography to do a couple of Unicorn space eight counts,
and I'm still filled up by that two hours and
I couldn't put Anna to bed and feel that. So
I made that choice because and I think that reframe
that you have us do instead of the self talk.
I feel guilty because to saying I made the decision,
(25:06):
because I made that choice, because it's so powerful, because
then you can communicate it to your children without ambivalence. Absolutely,
I'm gonna really try to highlight this seat of saying
to my kids, I have to go do this talk, right,
and everything about our body language changes and we act
so like we're being tortured, like I'm sorry, you know, guys,
I'm not going to be home tomorrow because I have
(25:27):
to do this talk. It makes it seem like, oh, well,
mom must be going to go do something so dreadful, right,
the look on her face, her tone, her body language,
or the apologetic like sorry, guys, I am not going
to be home tomorrow night. Right. We're not doing them
any favors by putting on that voice and acting small
and acting all guilty. So I don't do that. I say,
(25:50):
guess what, you guys, you know how much I love
devil thumb Ranch. I get to go there, do a
talk and go to the spot. It's not amazing, and
they're just like so used to it that they're just oh,
good mom. Yeah. And so I'm like, so, yeah, I'm
not going to be here tomorrow. I'm missing a basketball game.
I'm so bummed. Daddy will take videos and I'll look
at them, call me on the right home. Because of course,
(26:10):
did I inventory what was I missing? I was missing
my son's basketball game, and I don't like to miss
their games. It was a choice, though I was not forced.
And so in my decision making, I like to also
communicate not just first to myself why yes this is
a choice of making, but second to my kids. I
want to show them that I love my job. I
want to show them that I value friendships. I want
(26:32):
to show them that I value my health, not just
in words, but in action. And so that's really important
to me. Now I'm going to play the devil's advocate.
Some people say, well, what if you don't love your
job and you really do feel like you have to
do it, this isn't something that you want to do.
There's still a values based decision there. Guys. I have
to go on a work trip because mommy has to
(26:56):
bring home money. So we can eat so that we
can have Christmas, or we can go on vacation, or
we could just pay the bills. And so I'm sorry
that I'm gonna, you know, miss the basketball game, but
I love you so much and i care about taking
care of you so much that I'm going to go
do this and when I come back, I can't wait
to see you. Right. So it might not be as
Rosie is enthusiastic as my first version, but it's still
(27:19):
being honest and it still leaves I hope as you
hear me say that it leaves you with a different
feeling when you know why your parent is making the
decision that they are. As you're speaking the two scenarios,
I just think essentially what you're saying is that you
can be a mother and still lead an authentic life.
And when your children see that messaging from you saying
(27:40):
that you're excited to go on this trip and you'll
see them when you get back, recognizing and acknowledging the
things that you're going to be missing, I think that
also gives them an example of how to be. I
think of this quote as you're speaking, Cheryl, what's important
is to create a life that you don't need to
escape from. We always think about all of these vacations, right,
(28:02):
like I need to get away, I need to take
a vacation. But what about changing that notion on his
head and actually building a life with a partner, with children,
with all of those responsibilities and obligations, and rather than
think of them as something heavy, think of it as
part of a creative process to build a life that
is so wonderful, enriching and fulfilling with all of those
(28:25):
time outs. Like you've said that you don't have to
escape from. I love that quote so much. I did
track it down and it was a writer named Brianna West,
So shout out to you, Brianna for that beautiful quote
that true self care is building a life you don't
want to escape from. I think what the three of
us are talking about is, by no means is probably
(28:46):
any of our lives rosie, perfect, beautiful, lovely every day.
It is truly the mindset. And I don't want for
me and for the patients that I work with. I
don't want those children to feel like they are a burden,
or that they have taken the joy and the spirit
(29:07):
out of their parents. Right that, Oh, I used to
be because I do hear that a lot too. People
will say to me, you know that I used to
be a CFO. You know that I used to be
a teacher. These moms will tell me this, and I
take it and I hold it for them because I
know what they're trying to say. What they're trying to
say is I used to have another identity. If you
find you're going through multiple seasons of this, at some point,
(29:30):
you have to know I have to pause. I have
to do something different. I can still love my children
and fill in the blank, and maybe if everybody did
that for themselves, right, I can still love my children
and fill in the blank. Forget the butt. We all
know butts are and eraser words we don't want to use.
But I love them. But and people say that I
(29:50):
love my kids, but they drive me crazy. I love
my kids, but I just want to be alone sometimes.
So I love my kids, and I deserve of a
night to myself. I love my kids, and whatever you're
filling the blank is, and I do this. I've been
doing this for many years with people. I promise if
people practice it, and not just once, but you practice it,
(30:12):
you're consistent with it. It will manifest, it will happen,
and your family will genuinely be healthier and happier because
of it. I love this exercise that you're walking us
through instead of the butt put in the end and
fill in the blank. Is that what you would recommend
as that first step for the woman who is feeling
(30:33):
all of those feelings in that cycle of shame and
guilt and wants to get out but doesn't know how. Absolutely.
One of the first things that that has come at
least to my mind right now, is even understanding the
difference between shame and guilt. If you have shame, that
(30:54):
is usually a private secret, deep seated feeling that is
internal that is so scary to release that you don't
even tell anybody. It's something that is such a burden
because it's generally kept a secret. That's shame. Guilt is
(31:15):
usually quite specific. I feel bad about Oh, I feel
bad I didn't put the kids to bed. I feel
bad I didn't say I love you when they walked
out the door. I feel bad I forgot to kid
my sign my kid up for karate. It's usually you
feel bad about and then fill that blanket, and and
that does plague women because they wind up feeling like, gosh,
(31:35):
well I have like fifteen of those a day. How
many times can I feel bad about something? And so
that is a very real experience and gets in the
way a lot of times from women really growing. But
I do want to distinguish it from shame, which puts
you almost in shackles because it's a very lonely, dark experience.
(31:57):
So I really want people to get in touch with
that difference between guilt and shame and to know that
shame needs to be shared in order to really heal
past it. It's like trauma and guilt is something that
I think can be really helped by purpose driven talk.
What is the little voice in your head? What is
(32:19):
it saying to you? How can I rewrite that narrative?
What are your values? Do you have a value statement?
Do you have a family value statement? Keep that as
your anchor point and ground it. So I just wanted
to speak to that. Wow, it's like a mic drop.
You're a living, walking ball of wisdom. I hope your
kids I can tell them how proud I am of
(32:41):
you to them keep shining because there's so much what
you said said today that we can use to apply
to make our lives better. Thank you, Thank you guys
so much for having me on Hi. It's me Eve.
(33:07):
Are you a therapist, counselor coach or nutritionists that has
thought about introducing the fair Play system directly to your clients, Well,
now you can come and roll in the fair Play Method,
a new online program that provides you with hands on training,
a ton of valuable resources, and a community of certified
professionals who are all part of a greater cultural movement
(33:27):
for systemic change. Learn more about how you can help
your clients shift the domestic workload in their own homes
towards more equity, more fairness, and greater connectivity. Visit fair
Play method dot com. So, as you may know, now,
every episode of this podcast ends with an action item
(33:50):
for you are listeners that we call a time out.
This is really a time for you to focus on
yourself and reflect on what you're hearing today, and we're
starting to come versation first with ourselves and then ultimately
with those around us. I loved all of Cheryl's insights Leave,
but probably the most profound one for me is just
(34:10):
this idea that she would see patient upon patient upon
patient in a day they'd all be struggling with the
same thing, these intense negative emotions. They would be feeling
so isolated, and yet no one was talking to each other.
And so it's this wild, surreal experience of feeling isolated.
But it's a collective experience. And Cheryl was the only one,
(34:35):
through her vantage point of being a clinician, who was
able to see that pattern. And I'm so glad she's
speaking about that and really making this a common theme
and a common thread for all of us, because we're
all suffering in different ways, and yet we don't talk
to each other because of our guilt and our shame,
which are real isolating forces. Oh my god, I think
(34:57):
I wouldn't be doing this podcast with you. We need
something else to do. Write like a hole in our head,
as my grandmother would say. But we were doing this
for that reason. We want you, we're here listening with
us to understand that private lives are public issues. That
the more we stay isolated and in shame as opposed
(35:20):
to collectively understanding that this is normal, the smaller we are,
and when when we can become and then we don't
ski anymore. We we leave our skis at the airport metaphorically.
So today we are going to build on Dr Cheryl's
amazing self talk reframe about guilt and shame where we're
(35:43):
going to bring it to the surface. We're gonna not
let shame isolate and high us in darkness. So what
we would like all of you to do, when you
can safely, is to think of one time in your
life recently where you felt guilty about something or some
that's coming up that you feel guilty about doing. So
(36:05):
you know, a deity in in the past, I would say,
I know, after a really long day today, tonight, I'm
going out to dinner with my friends Dara and Susanne.
And in the past I probably would have said, wow,
I really feel guilty for heading out to dinner right
after a really long work day because Seth took the
kids to school this morning, so I will have not
(36:26):
seen my kids all day today. What Dr Cheryl is
asking us to do is to take I feel guilty
because I feel guilty because I'm not putting my kids
to bed tonight, and to write down instead I made
the choice, because I made the decision because so this
is how it would work. I feel guilty because I'm
(36:47):
not putting my kids to bed instead, I will write
down I am making the decision not to put my
kids to bed because I really believe in friendships, and
I know that to believe in friendships you have to
spend time on them and cultivate them. And so that
is why I'm going to make the decision to go
out to dinner tonight with Dara and Susanne. Do you
(37:09):
have one as a practice that we could do for
our listeners. So yesterday I had a thirty minute window
and I could have spent those thirty minutes downstairs with
my family or exercising. And I really needed to exercise,
(37:29):
like you, I'd had a really long day and I
just needed to decompress. I felt a lot of guilt
about making that choice, but I sent a quick text
to my husband and I said, hey, I need thirty minutes.
It felt difficult to send it. Immediately after sending that text,
(37:51):
I felt a great sense of relief and felt a
sense of power, and I exercised. And then when I
showed up thirty minutes later for my family, I was present,
I was happy, and I was a better mom and
a wife. Dr Cheryl talks a lot about this but
we can only fill other people's cup when our cup
(38:13):
is full, and really it's one of the greatest gifts
we could give to ourselves as moms, as wives, and
as human beings. So that's what we're working on today
in our Time Out, but stay tuned for next week,
where we moved from how we talk to ourselves our
self talk into how we communicate what we need to others.
(38:35):
Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to Time Out,
a production of I Heart Podcasts and Hello Sunshine. I'm
Ev Rodsky, author of the New York Times bestseller fair
Play and Find Your Unicorn Space. Follow me on social
media at Eve Rodsky and learn more about our work
at fair Play Life. And I'm Dr Ad Narukar, Harvard
(38:57):
physician with a specialty and stress resilience burnout in mental health.
Follow me on social media at dr add ne rucar
and find out more about my work at dr add
dot com. That's d R A d I t I
dot com. Our Hello Sunshine team is Amanda farrand Aaron
Stover and Jennifer Yonker. Our I Heart Media team is
(39:20):
Ali Perry, Jennifer Bassett, and Jessica Cranchich. We hope you
all love taking a much needed time out with us today.
Listen and subscribe to Time Out on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
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