EPISODE TAKEAWAYS:

Want to avoid burnout and stay centered? You’ve got to stop doing this:



1. Letting Others’ Opinions and Needs Make Decisions for You
2. Putting on a Mask 
3. Letting Chores and Laundry Run Your Life
4. Showing Up Like a Man
5. Staying in Boxes That Are Too Small for You

WHAT'S INSIDE:

 READ THE ENTIRE TRANSCRIPT BELOW

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Modern Mommy Doc podcast. Today, we are going to be talking about five things I say no to in order to avoid burnout. These are particular to me. These are my own things that I do to avoid burnout. But I know that if you did them, you would be able to avoid burnout too.

I'm going to start with number one, but before I do that, let me back up a second.

Why do we need to say no? Why can't we just do it all? Why isn't it possible for us to multitask and to juggle and to do all the things? And what is the reason we have all of this pressure in our society that working moms should be able to handle everything? That they should be able to lean in fully to work and they should be able to lean in fully to their mom role? That they should be amazing moms? That they should always kill it? That they should never get mad at their kids? They also should be amazing lovers to their partners? That they should be like total sex kittens? That they should be able to stay completely fit? That they should be a size two? That they should have their hair and their makeup done perfectly? That they should also have an amazing social life? That they should do it all right?

That's what Instagram tells us. That's what all the social media platforms tell us. These places tell us that, as moms, we should be able to do every single thing. And the reality is, we can't. If we actually want to be effective, we have to decide that these are the things we really care about: those five areas in our Centered Life Blueprint. We've talked about these five areas in the past that we want to focus on, that we are going to place all of our time and our energy and attention on. And, if we actually do JUST that, we can do anything. But it means we have to say no to some stuff. So for me, when I identified, "These are the five things I care the most about," it was way easier for me to learn the process (and it is a process — it's not an ‘I’ve made it, I'm done' kind of thing) of saying, "I CAN'T do everything."

Ok. I'm ready to tell you number one:

1. Letting Others' Opinions and Needs Make Decisions For Me.

I know I started big with this. I could've started with laundry, but I decided to start with this one, because what is the point if we don't talk about things that really matter, you guys?

I was born a people pleaser. My mom is a people pleaser. Her mom was a people pleaser. I come from a long line of people pleasers. Also, in society, as women we're taught that we should be pleasing. We are taught that we should put our needs last and that others' needs are more important than ours.

And I am not here to preach to you that you need to be selfish all the time. I'm not here to preach to you that you should not care about other people's feelings. I remember there was a book when I was in medical school that I read that started with, "It's not all about you." Now I gotta look it up. We'll put it in the show notes once I find it (sorry guys, I looked and looked — let me know if you can remember this one!)  It started with, "It's not all about you." I remember when I read that book thinking, "Okay, it's not all about me. It's about my service to other people. It's about making sure that I am not selfish, that I'm accommodating."

 I don't think there's anything wrong with considering other people's opinions. We all do that all the time. My kids' needs. I'm always thinking about them. My husband's needs. I'm always thinking about them, but it's different when it comes from a place of first and foremost. "I know myself. I value myself. I know my worth." That allows me to be able to think first about the question, “Does this decision, even if it meets someone else's need, does it still allow me to keep my worth? Does it still allow me to keep my peace? Does it still allow me to remain at the center of my life?” Not to be selfish, but because I know when I am well taken care of when I have, as Lizzo says, learned to be my best soulmate, I am better for everybody else. I'm not this empty vessel that is seeping out to everybody else. Instead I'm able to really intentionally pour into other people's lives.

So how do you learn how to not let other people's opinions — how to not let fear, how to not let other people's needs — be the main driving force in your decision-making? Here's the answer (you might not like it): You have to spend a lot of time with yourself.

You have to actually know what joy feels like. Because once you know what joy feels like, you are not willing to live without it. It's that simple. I know when I'm in a place of joy and inner peace I'm so much stronger (and that doesn't mean I'm not a beast, too). You can be fired up and still be at peace and have joy. So I'm not asking you to sit on a mat and be om, om, om all day long. I'm giving you permission be fired up, but to also know what inner joy and peace looks like. And if you are able to do that, I promise you that is going to be the place where you are able to then make decisions that are about what YOU want.

I spend time with myself and get to know myself in a number of ways. Every day I spend five minutes being quiet with myself. It doesn't have to be perfect or in perfect stillness. You guys, the other day, I went to one of those float tanks. I thought I was going to love it. You know what I'm talking about? It's where you go and hang out in complete darkness. There's no sound at all. And they fill it up with a ton of salt water. I don't know what the buoyancy is. It's a lot, though, so that then when you are in the water floating, you cannot drown. But on your top, it's fully exposed still to the air and the water you're floating in is only your body temperature. It's not like a spa or hot tub temperature and there's no music. There's nothing. I sat in that thing for an hour and I was miserable. I can totally be in moving meditation with myself.

I can be completely still with myself for minutes or even for hours. But I felt like, in that thing, I was so trapped. I hated it. So I'm not telling you that you have to go to a meditation retreat or that you have to be in complete silence. Maybe your time of being quiet with yourself is listening to your favorite song. Maybe it is you sitting, reading a quiet book. Maybe it is you journaling — it's whatever it is that allows you to sit and actually think about how you are feeling. I don't know about you, but I know that my mom and dad, Lord love them, did not understand about that piece of social emotional health and about being in tune with our feelings. You know what I'm talking about? Like with one of my kids, they might be crying and I might say, "It's okay to feel sad. It's okay to be frustrated. It's okay to be angry. It's okay to be disappointed."

The generation of parents that came before us didn't understand on a large scale that you can't get over an emotion until you go through it. Giving into our emotions and working through them is what makes them eventually okay, though.

I'm going to give you an example. It was my birthday last month. It was my birthday and it was a big birthday for me. It was my 40th birthday. And my husband, I told him in advance, "Buddy, this is a big birthday for me. I can feel it coming on that I'm probably going to feel disappointed because my expectations are so high for it. Here's what I need in order to feel good on that day. I'm going to do my own stuff to help myself feel good, but this is what would really be special to me."

So I told him I really wanted  it to be that there was something big that  happened. And the big thing didn’t have to be expensive. It could be he and I go to a park and we sit and we stare into each other's eyes for five hours. You know what I mean? He could buy me a bottle of cheap wine. I don't care. I just really wanted it to be intentional. And I wanted it to be really special either with my friends or with him.

All right. So I woke up at eight o'clock in the morning and I had some work that I needed to do. And my husband had to go to work. I was alone by myself in my house and I had a few people text me, but not that many. Then I got through to the middle of the day and I didn't have anything special planned because I was waiting on my husband (because he said he understood what my request was for my birthday). It got later in the day, and then my husband didn't get home until 7:30 pm. I found myself with a single tear falling down my cheek as I ordered my own Thai food and ordered a drink to go with it. I thought, "Okay, this is my 40th birthday."

Now my husband (my sweet, loving husband) had actually planned a whole series of Zoom calls with a bunch of friends starting at nine o'clock at night after the kids had gone to bed and had bought a dessert, and a huge thing of flowers and he actually had planned something special, but it wasn't the same as what I had planned in my mind. You feel me, Mamas? That happens. And so I was disappointed. And then I felt like a TOTAL jerk for being disappointed. The single tear turned into sobbing and turned into red eyes, and into that thing where your nose gets really red and swollen and it's twice the size as normal cause it's so puffy.

Now I was supposed to join on those Zoom calls with my friends and act happy and act fine. And I couldn't do it. I went into the shower and had to take a 20-30 minute shower and put all these friends off until I could calm down.

I joined up with my husband afterward and finally had to say, "I was disappointed. And I'm not disappointed in you, I'm just disappointed that I felt so lonely all day and created this story in my head about how I guess I have no friends and what happened and with how it all went down." And my husband thankfully said, "Whitney it's okay. It's okay that you're disappointed. It's okay that it's not how you wanted it to go." I'm telling you, those times — those five minutes by myself every day being quiet — got me to that place a lot faster of being okay with whoever I am.

The other thing is during the week I spend time doing things I love to do. I spend time being alive for nobody but me doing things that are not about performance, doing things that are just about me, enjoying life and enjoying being with myself almost to the point where, when I got to my birthday, that's why I hadn't planned anything for myself. 'Cause I was like, "I don't need anything. I'm going to work out, but otherwise, it's cool. That's all I need to do for myself on this day." Taking care of myself means, a lot of times, jumping on the Peloton bike, or sitting and reading a book. It means going to a store and window shopping and not buying anything, but just randomly walking around without an actual checklist of things that I need to buy. It means that I spend time WASTING time on me because I am worth wasting time on.

And because I spend time doing that, I know myself really well and I value myself and I trust now my own decision-making because I have practiced really building into myself as my best friend. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's totally true.

2. Number two: I say no to putting on a mask. Number two is deciding that when I am not doing well, that I will be vulnerable, that I will be myself, that I will let somebody know that when I'm struggling with postpartum depression and anxiety, that I will say something if I am having a horrible day. It's as simple as being in the office with my patients and they say, "How are you?" And normally I would say, "I'm great," but really I'm not great at all.

Without a mask I would say, "You know, actually I'm kind of getting through today. Thanks for asking that." I allow myself to be a human. As moms, sometimes we identify so strongly with being these multitasking Jedis that we're afraid that if we take the mask off, we will crumble. So sometimes I know it's a defense mechanism for me to keep a mask on constantly because it keeps me from having to go there in my mind, and to admit that things actually aren't okay. But when I commit to taking my mask off and to being who I really am, that is totally when the magic happens. That is totally when I go, "Oh, that's why I feel that way. Oh, that's why this thing isn't working out. Oh, that's a decision I need to make." And that's also when I join in camaraderie with other moms, because they feel that exact same way.

3. Number three: I say no to letting laundry and chores run my life. They don't matter. I get them done. The piles are not folded, but not well. The dishwasher is not loaded perfectly. I don't always get to the laundry every single week. Of course we have clean underwear and socks (don't worry about us) but the house is the least of my priorities. I don't focus on dishes, laundry or house cleaning beyond making sure things are sanitary.

I make it a point to have less stuff so I have TO DO less housecleaning, but then for the house cleaning that there is to be done? It's like my fifth, sixth, or seventh priority. I know like Nora Roberts said, and I semi-quote, "What balls am I juggling that are glass and what are rubber?” I've learned, and I want to implore you to learn, to take a pause and take stock and just ask yourself when these things come up on your list in a day of, I need to do this, and do this, and do this, and do this, to really give yourself permission to say, “Actually I don't have to. What else do I really want to say YES to today?” Then, at the end of the day, I'm going to feel amazing and guess what? That's going to make it so when I get to those chores, it's going to take me like two seconds because I'm going to feel energized. I'm going to put on the dance music in my headphones and I'm going to be zipping around doing my chores, cause I feel like I was purposeful in the day versus the other way around.

4. Number four: I say no to showing up like a man. This is similar to taking off the mask and to not letting other people's opinions run me, but it's a little different in the workplace. You were taught like I was taught that when you enter the workforce (if you are older than 25 right now) that if you want to get ahead like a man, you have to play like a man. If you want to be considered and taken seriously, you have to play by their rules. That means don't show emotions. That means don't act like you're a mom or like you have other obligations. That means you better say, "Yes" to every single thing that someone asks you to do.

Why? Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of the hardworking women in the generations before us, who did have to do that. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I salute you. You are one of the people that made it possible with all your grit and with all your single-minded effort to make it so that people like me could have choices and could say, “I'm not leaning in right now. Nope. I'm leaning into me and leaning into my family, and, when it's actually purposeful and fits with my skills and talents, then saying one hundred percent, I'm leaning into work because it means something to me.”

We are moving beyond Lean In. Even people like Sheryl Sandberg who wrote Lean In are moving beyond just straight lean in. to lean in when it works for you. Amazing, amazing, It's a new generation. I cannot wait to see what my kids' generation is going to be doing and how much more advanced that they will be as well.

5. I say no to small boxes I’m too big for. What is the small box that you are living in? What is the limited thinking, the scarcity thinking that drives you and that says, "Actually I can't try to get that position because I have this issue. Actually, I'll never live in that house. Actually., I'll never thrive in that way." What is the Lynch pin thing that is holding you back? What are the boxes you have built around yourself?

Robin Arzon was talking about this on Peloton the other day. What are the small boxes that you have built around yourself that you are strong enough as a working mom to bust through? And I do not mean you run yourself ragged to do it. I don't mean you don't get any sleep or you burn the candle at both ends to bust through it. I mean, you harness your power. You become your best inner advocate by doing the four things I just talked about so that you have the energy and the wherewithal and the confidence and the total Savage power to bust it like this. Like just with your little finger, you flick it and all those walls come down. When you start thinking from an abundance mindset, Mama, it opens up the world of possibility.

Now there are a lot of people that are out there that talk about manifesting. No shade to those people. For me, I think that I've gone through enough and that I have cared for enough pediatric patients for which death and dying has been the ultimate outcome, no matter what they believed, that it's really hard for me to fully get on board with that because I just know in my own life and in the life of the patients that I care for, that sometimes there are major barriers to the things that we would like to have because we visualize them and "pouf" this is how it's going to be. But I do know and believe that having a vision for our lives of how we want to show up and of how we want to feel, of how intentional we want our lives to be and purposeful, of what we want our lives to be at the end of the day, gives us agency.

You deserve to have some control in your life. That's for everybody. It's for every single person. Control is one of the major factors of resilience. And that doesn't matter how much money you have, that doesn't matter the color of your skin. It doesn't matter all of the traumatic events that have happened in your life. Every single person can build some measure of control and inner advocacy and empowerment. It's when you snuff that out in a person that they're stuck. So I believe whatever comes your way, whatever has already come your way, whatever hardships you have faced, that you are capable of breaking through boxes, that you are capable of reaching new echelons, that you are capable of having a centered life — a life you feel proud of,  a life that feels good, a life that feels joyful, where you are thriving.

THE MODERN MAMAS MEMBERSHIP:

Join the Modern Mamas Club

The Modern Mamas Club is a safe supportive space for like minded Modern Mamas who dream of having it all, to actually succeed in that dream and lift up other Mamas to succeed along the way. It is possible to thrive, not just survive in your work life, parent life and YOU life.

✓ A Community of Mamas to Support You

✓ 24/7 Access to Dr. Whitney's Video Library

✓ Live Events, Workshops, and Hangouts

✓ Relatable Mom Rooms and Discussions

✓ Resource Library and Dr. Recommendations

✓ Fun Weekly Mini Mom-Note Emails

✓ Weekly Challenges and Prompts

✓ Journaling Downloads and More!