Hey guys, it's Dr. Whitney, and today's episode is about your energy. It's about you conserving your energy for the purpose of being able to pour it into the areas of your life and the priorities that you have and the values that you hold dear.
And I wanna talk about that in relationship to other people and this idea that, as moms, we spend a lot of our time soothing other people. And I know this is totally true for me. Of course, the biggest thing that's gonna come to mind, the most obvious way that we soothe people is that we soothe our kids.
As moms, we're caregivers. We are helping a kid who scrapes their knee. We are tending to our child's sobs when a friend doesn't wanna play with them and they feel left out. We are making sure that people feel like things are fair when one kid won the game of Uno and the other kid feels upset about it. So we're constantly caregiving and soothing.
But I also wanna think beyond that, because I think for a lot of women, I don't think I'm alone on this, that we actually operate with soothing as our main mechanism of action in a lot of areas of our lives. And especially for those of us that have anxiety, we spend a lot of energy trying to soothe others, so that everything is okay.
Let's say you get into a fight with your partner and let's say that while you're growing up, your primary points of attachment (your parents, right?) would kind of easily get upset and you wanted to keep the peace. And so you kind of soothe them, or you'd make sure that you were acting like the perfect little lady, or you make sure that you are doing everything right or you're getting good grades, because you don't want to mess up the peace. You wanna keep the peace.
Now, as an adult in your relationships, that might be the way that you operate too. So I find myself when I'm having an argument with my husband, even if it's something that I know that he did "wrong," or something that's his fault, my instinct is to apologize after I've shown up for myself.
So let's say for example, he's supposed to pick up the kids on Fridays and he neglects to tell me that he made an appointment for himself to go get his haircut on Friday, which is totally fine. Totally good that he's taking care of himself, but he forgot to tell me. And so it fell into my lap to do, and at the last minute, even though I had a meeting, I had to cancel it so that way I could go pick up the kids, right? That classic mom jumping in and mom being the she fault parent.
Okay? So I get miffed. I talked to my husband about it. I try to do that in as clear a way as possible and as fair a way as possible, using compassionate assertiveness. If you don't know what that is, you can go back to some of our previous podcast episodes.
But let's say that he still gets upset about it. He gets defensive. Maybe he brings up some other counterpoint about how I don't communicate in a way that's useful to our family, or maybe I put him out sometimes in terms of ways that he has to cover for me. So even though in that situation, it was totally fair of me to bring up this minor transgression that happened in our relationship, I find myself then, because it feels uneasy now and we don't have peace between us, wanting to apologize, wanting to soothe his hurt feelings because I brought something up to him and he didn't like it.
That happens across tons of our relationships. That happens with our kids, sometimes, when we give them a consequence for not listening to us. The other night, my daughter talked back to me in a way that was so rude and she lost her screen time and then she totally lost it emotionally.
And then I felt myself wanting to soothe that upset that she had, that sadness that she had when she said, "I feel sad. I feel really disappointed that I lost my screen time." I, deep in my soul, wanted to make it right, even though I know as a parent I did the absolute right thing by setting a boundary and holding firm with it.
So what do you do if that is your MO? If you are someone who's constantly soothing other people and using your energy to do that?
And the first step to changing it is just noticing. It's noticing what your MO is. It's noticing the way that you tend to want to soothe and to put in energy to that. And then it's also noticing how you feel after you spend all that energy soothing.
Do you feel tired? Do you feel resentful? Do you not have energy now to do all the things that you wanna do when you're with your kids? Do you feel distracted?
For me, when I put a lot of energy into soothing other people in ways that are unhealthy for me, that don't have firm boundaries around them, I end up actually hurting myself. I drain myself so much of energy that now I'm not as effective as I want to be in my relationships with my kids, with my partner, with my colleagues. I'm not as effective as a professional. I can't think as clearly when I need to make decisions. I don't speak as clearly when I'm supposed to be communicating with other people. And so it takes away.
So the first step is, again, becoming aware of when you do this. The second step is recognizing how that makes you feel.
The third step is starting to make decisions in the moment when you come up with opportunities to soothe other people and decide if it's worth your energy. Now, I know that feels kind of a weird way to say it. Like, well, it's not worth my energy to take care of you, right? That feels harsh. That feels cold.
That feels against a way that we're naturally taught to operate as women. I totally get that. That's the way that we were conditioned as little girls is to do that. But when we do that, we're able to actually analyze, is this the way that I wanna operate? Will this be good for me and will it be good for the other people around me?
Because I guarantee you, when you soothe other people's needs, when other people are acting like a baby, throwing a tantrum, whether it's your partner or your kid or anybody else, you ultimately actually don't serve them. It makes it so your relationship is less healthy and you don't have that deep connection and that authenticity, that you breed resentment inside yourself, that you end up the one who actually suffers as a result of it.
Now, a couple things. As you're starting to do this in your relationships, you are probably gonna notice that, for some people that you're in relationship with, it's going to rub them the wrong way. Let's say that in your relationships, you're actually used to operating in a way where you have a lot of high conflict, a lot of high emotion.
So let's say my husband didn't pick up the kids, he couldn't do it. I have to take it over. Maybe I would normally write a nasty email back or a nasty text back. Or when we are talking about it, I would raise my voice or I would get really emotional or maybe I would use name calling or I would just get really upset.
Let's say instead, if I change the way I operate to have less energy going out and instead of getting upset, instead of ramping up, let's say that I am quiet. Let's say I'm calm, but I'm firm and I'd say, "You know, that's not gonna work for me next time. Just so you know, the next time you ask me to do that, I need at least 15 to 20 minutes of a heads up."
Let's say that makes your partner kind of infuriated. You are not engaging in that same old cycle that you normally did.
Maybe with your kids. It infuriates them that you're just holding a line. You are not tending to the tantrum that they're having over and over and over again. Maybe your colleague, who's really needy and loves to have high drama, it rubs them the wrong way when you change your mode of operation.
Because change is hard for people.
So people who have not learned to be healthy about their boundaries, people who have not learned to be healthy about the way that they give their energy to other people, they will have a hard time with you evolving and being a better version of yourself. If you are being a better version of yourself, it's going to be more difficult for those people to accept it at first.
You are going to feel them potentially pulling you back into drama. You're gonna feel them sucking you back into you extending a ton of energy.
And I wanna ask you: at what cost? At what cost? Our energy is the most precious commodity that we have. That ability to be creative, that ability to be excited, that ability to be present. And in the moment when I have the most energy, it allows me to be in deepest connection with myself and with other people. You've lost everything when you give that away.
So my challenge for you this week is to think about: where are places where you are literally giving away your energy for free? Where are places where giving away your energy is harming you and the other people around you?
And what could you gain by keeping more of your energy for yourself? Not in a selfish way, but in a way that actually protects your peace so you are able to be more powerful and to show up as the fullest best version of yourself to yourself and to every other person around you.
I know first-hand that working mom life is hard, but I also know it doesn’t have to be impossible.
Trust me. The best way to get unstuck isn’t to work harder. It’s to use a framework that gets real results, no matter what area you need to tackle first.