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ENCORE EPISODE: BATTLING MIDLIFE BURNOUT! · Uncluttered and Unfiltered: The Podcast For Women Over 50

• 0:03
  Welcome to Uncluttered and Unfiltered, the podcast urging
• 0:07
  you to let it go and don't look back, with nationally acclaimed
• 0:11
  professional organizer Christine Stone and self-proclaimed Hot
• 0:16
  Damn Mess radio and TV personality Eden Kendall.
• 0:20
  Welcome everybody to uncluttered and unfiltered I'm Eden.
• 0:23
  And I'm Christine. And we like to say if you found
• 0:27
  us, you found your new friend group because we talked about
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  all of the things that have to do with being a woman over 50.
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  Now, Christine is a professional organizer.
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  And sometimes that comes into play, sometimes it doesn't.
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  It just depends what the episode is about.
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  But she always has great wisdom to impart.
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  I am a newly reformed, unorganized person.
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  Let's see if it still sticks after a while.
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  I'm going to do my best to become that way.
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  We are taking requests. So we had a request for an
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  episode on burnout. Yes.
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  And we kind of call it emotional.
• 1:00
  Emotional burnout like or emotional feeling overwhelmed
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  emotionally. Yeah, so this episode isn't just
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  about burnout as it might pertain in the workplace.
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  It actually has to do with people dumping their stuff on
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  you, whether that's an employer, a, a child, a mother, a sister,
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  a brother and And we'll cover. All of it.
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  We both have stories. So this story that you have you
• 1:29
  asked your daughters permission, which we we like to do.
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  We don't like to just talk. Yeah, I mean, you know, we want
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  to without permit. There are some things we'll say
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  about our kids, but but the the real stories like this.
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  You got her permission. Yes, they did.
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  It was a it was a learning. Experience.
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  It was a learning experience, which really has to do with this
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  episode because what we're saying is sometimes you just got
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  to let them see the consequences of actions when they're adults.
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  Because burnout can very much be caused by, in this instance,
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  your adult children offering the opportunity for you to also
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  carry the weight of whatever mistake they may have made or
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  what, what, you know, misconceptions they had about
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  the real world. And instead of it being like,
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  OK, go handle this whether we want to or not, we kind of take
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  it on. Well, I'm going to give this
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  analogy real quick before we tell her story.
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  So imagine if everybody throughout your week came in
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  first, your husband spilled his stuff on you about what's going
• 2:34
  on and how you can you do this? Can you fix that?
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  Can you make that appointment? So that's one potato in your
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  lap. Then your daughter calls you and
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  she says, Oh my God, I don't know how to do this.
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  Can you just do this for me? I have to go to work.
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  That's another potato. Before you know it, you have a
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  big sack of potatoes in your lap and everyone else has gone on
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  with their life. Yeah, but you've got everybody's
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  crap in your lap. Potatoes.
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  You. This episode is trying to figure
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  out how to get rid of that in your life because part of it is
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  when you have kids or siblings, there's a pattern going on.
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  Kids when they're young, they look to you for advice.
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  They're young, they, they don't know how to do things.
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  That's normal. And then you set up the, the
• 3:26
  child parent relationship and this goes on forever.
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  But then at some point, and I even wrote this down because I
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  thought this was so important, at some point, what we tolerated
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  as a younger mom because we had the energy back then, we can no
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  longer do. We're tired.
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  We have aging parents. We may have health issues
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  ourself, things going on at work.
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  We're going to retire. We have our own issues.
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  We have our own shit. Yes, we have our own stuff.
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  And you know, we also have come to the conclusion we don't have
• 4:00
  a lot of time left on this earth.
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  We don't really think that way before 5055, but you start to
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  think that way when you hit certain ages and you say to
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  yourself, do I want to be doing this for the rest of my life
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  where everyone comes, dumps their stuff on me and leaps and
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  has a great life and goes about their day?
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  Yes. So that's why I think this
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  episode really, really fascinated me because I think
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  especially with adult children, I think that you have patterns
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  and you try to break them and people don't like it, whether
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  it's with your kids, your girlfriends, your husband, when
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  you try to make changes, people like you the way you are because
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  you were easy to like be a pushover or you were easy to
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  dump everything on. And then, you know, I mean, how
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  many times have you said to your daughter, they'll cry about
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  something, they'll want to fix something, and then by the end
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  of the day, you'll call and go, So how are you fine?
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  Why will be like what? Oh my daughter sent me a text
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  the other day. I don't want to get off subject
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  from your your story but she sent me a text the other day
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  from work saying Oh my God I'm so embarrassed of what just
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  happened at work. And so now I'm hanging on
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  threads and I still have that feeling like they are an
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  extension of my own body and I'm feeling secondhand embarrassment
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  for her. I'm worried if she's done
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  something at work that's going to have a big possibility of
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  getting in trouble. Like what's going on?
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  Hours later she gets back to me and it was like ripped pants or
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  something and then she just forgot to get back to me and
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  tell me what it was. She handed me a potato and
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  forgot to come get her potato back.
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  Right. And also that story, thinking of
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  that story, it's I think texting.
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  We didn't have texting back in the old days.
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  So there's so much easy communication between parent and
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  child that you feel guilty. Guilt comes into play to this.
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  Like, I can't ignore that text, right?
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  I can't. They'll ignore yours.
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  Right, they'll ignore yours all day long but youth as going back
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  to the mother child, you say, oh God, I can't do that.
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  What if like their car's on fire, they're drowning in a
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  lake? Like you can do something about
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  that right that second, you know what I mean?
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  So I think what I learned from kind of looking at this is what
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  are we getting out of it? Right.
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  We're we're not getting mashed potatoes out of this.
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  We're just getting a bad back from carrying the potatoes.
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  Right. But are we also getting
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  something else out of it like? Do we enjoy those?
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  Do we enjoy those potatoes? Do we want them in the first
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  place? We inviting those potatoes?
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  Well, because how does it make us feel?
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  It makes us feel needed, it makes us feel loved, and
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  although we don't like it, who are we without all those
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  potatoes coming towards us? So there's all that, y'all
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  leaving out another feeling. There's a feeling of being
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  disconnected. So if you're having problems out
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  there and solving them yourself, and you're not telling me about
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  every single problem, now I don't know if you have a
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  problem. Maybe you've got a problem.
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  You're not telling me your problems.
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  I might be worried that you have one.
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  So yeah, I don't worry about that.
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  I I've that ship is sailed for me about if they're not telling.
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  Me, that's a good. Yes.
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  But for me, I wonder, you know, and I'm not really there either
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  because I feel like they're telling me all of that.
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  Right. And I think because my kids are
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  of a different age, they don't tell me as much anymore because
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  I think that I've kind of shifted on how much I'm going to
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  help and do because I think it's a disservice to your adult kids
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  when you keep doing things for them and then they they don't
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  know how to do anything as an adult.
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  And then I worry, OK, I don't know if all of you out there
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  worry, then I worry, what if I drop dead of a heart attack or
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  in a car accident? It's something very unexpected.
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  They're not going to know how to do anything and then they'll.
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  Never go to the dentist again. They'll never, they'll never
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  make a doctor's appointment. They'll write nothing.
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  And so then I thought, this is where it's got to begin because
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  I'm not a young spring chicken. And so I think letting them make
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  their own mistakes, learning from their mistakes, giving them
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  the ability to know they've got it, they can do it, it, it's
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  going to be great. You've got this, you know how to
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  do it. It gives them self-confidence to
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  do things themselves. When you keep doing things for
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  everybody in your life, whether it's a child, a friend, like who
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  has that friend that just wants to, you know, throw a bunch of
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  potatoes in your lap and then like leave and then never talk
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  about it again until and you're like, how are you doing?
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  I haven't talked to you since you you're so.
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  Upset unit. Oh shoot, we've had three girls
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  night out, nights out since, right?
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  Or, or I I met a new guy. What do you mean that was the
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  old guy? I I don't even see him anymore,
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  right? Oh, I did I not tell you it's
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  benign, right? No, that would have been good
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  information. Thank you.
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  That's my name. Praying for you.
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  Right. I, Beverly exactly you could.
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  Tell me so. So let's get into your story
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  because it's I mean, to me, this is like with a bow the story of
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  the child who one didn't heed the advice, yes, and then still
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  wanted more help after trying to rectify the situation.
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  So go ahead. So my daughter moved from Texas
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  to Florida. But when she moved to Texas, my
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  husband said to her, you need to get a new title in that state.
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  Being a lawyer, he knows a lot of things that lay people
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  wouldn't know. So she says, well, how do you do
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  that? Right.
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  And he says, you have to go to the DMV.
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  You have to tell them, I just moved here.
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  You know, they take your Florida license tag first.
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  She says, well, I don't want him to take that.
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  Well, yeah, they have to take it because now they're giving you a
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  Texas one. And so he said to her, make sure
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  you get a copy of your new title because if you ever move
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  somewhere else, you're going to need that when you go to that
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  DMV. Whatever.
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  Well, two years goes by. Two years.
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  Two years she lived in Texas for a couple years, she moves back
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  to Florida. Oh, good thing she didn't
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  trouble herself with getting that pest right.
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  License and slide back in. My husband says to her, you
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  right when she moved back, you are going to need to go to with
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  your new title from Texas to the DMV here and get a Florida
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  license tag within a few weeks. You can't just drive around if
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  you're a Florida resident with, you know, outside for long
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  periods of time. I will, I will.
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  I'm gonna I'll do it right. So all of a sudden, her tag
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  expires. She doesn't know that you can't
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  drive with a suspended license tag.
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  So some neighbor of ours says, oh, I didn't know you lived in
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  Texas. And he goes, no, that's my
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  daughter. He goes, well, her license tag
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  is expired. I I know our neighbors are a
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  little. Yeah.
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  You know, that's detailed. Invested.
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  They're invested. And so my husband says, I
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  thought I told you to get your title.
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  And she said, no, I couldn't, I didn't do that.
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  And I can't, I just go, I'm just going to go here and do it.
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  He goes, no, no, no, no, no. I told you to get it in Texas.
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  They don't have it in Florida because she lived in Texas.
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  Well, I didn't do that. He goes, well, you can't drive
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  that car. It's against the law to drive a
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  car with an expired license tag. And she said, well, how am I
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  supposed to get around? And he said, I don't know
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  because I told you 6 months ago to do this.
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  So she drives the car back to her apartment, which is like 3
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  minutes from our house. And he said, I hope you don't
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  get arrested. You know, as she's walking out
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  the door while she's in her apartment complex, they tow her
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  car and she comes out and says, where's my car?
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  And they said, oh, they towed it.
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  And she said why? And they said because you can't
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  park a car that is expired with an out of state license plate.
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  I mean, so we're trying to explain to her, they don't know
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  if you stole that car in Texas. They don't know what you know.
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  So we make her go down to the place where they towed her car,
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  which is in the middle of no, I mean, it's not a good place.
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  She takes an Uber down on there, then they said you can pay which
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  was a couple $100 to get your car back but you can't.
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  Drive it. You can't take it out here.
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  And she said why? And they said you can't drive
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  with a suspended tag. She's leaves it at my house for
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  two weeks straight, not driven and this.
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  This invested neighbor by now is like, what's going on over
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  there? Right.
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  I mean, this one not so She had to fight with the state of Texas
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  for two weeks to get her title, which is like an act of God in
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  itself because she's of the old school.
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  I'm going to call and I'm going to just tell him, hey, I need my
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  title. Well, it doesn't work like that.
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  Nothing happens on the phone. Right.
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  And then she tried to get her title overnighted, which she
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  paid not for overnight, even though she thought she did
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  overnight it, but she really didn't.
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  I'm tired. See, now if you're feeling
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  burning, yes, just imagine being Christine right now because
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  you're like, I've got a million things going on, yes, medical
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  stuff happening with Mama, yes, and you're dealing with this.
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  And also, you know, she was pulling at my heartstrings a
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  little bit. Like I had a hair appointment.
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  I mean, it takes months to get into her.
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  Can't you just drop me off? I'll take an Uber.
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  But I'm like, so here's the deal.
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  I feel bad, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to rescue
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  because I think this is a valuable, valuable lesson.
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  So I took her to one doctor's appointment.
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  But the bottom line was her doing all of this on her own.
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  She finally, finally, finally got it from Texas, went right
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  over to the Florida license tag and got a new one and literally
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  said to me, I will never, as long as I live, have this
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  experience again. She didn't have a car for two
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  weeks and she's in her late 20s. That's debilitating tell.
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  Tell the part about when you said why don't you just Uber if
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  you're meeting up with friends or going on a date.
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  Yeah, so she had a date and she, I she goes, I don't know what
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  I'm going to do. I go Uber and she goes.
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  He'll think I've had a million Duis and they took my driver's
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  license. Definitely.
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  That's an assumption that is made in the dating world.
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  Oh yeah, you show up via Uber? Yep, it's just assumed.
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  Yep, you have a suspended license versus attached, yes.
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  So I said, well then I guess you'll have to reschedule your
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  date because. How awkward I go.
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  First of all, you know I go to bed at 6:30 at night, or I'm at
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  least in my pajamas. So unless you want me to drive
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  you in my pajamas with my hair up in a ponytail, I don't.
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  Which I don't think. How is that better anyway?
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  Right. How is that?
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  But you still have to get back. You still have to explain.
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  Right, right. So anyway, it's things like that
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  that really make you think, how much more of this can I do?
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  Over on our ladies only Facebook page, we asked just for fun.
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  What are some things that your adult kids didn't know how to do
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  that you were unaware? Blindsided by laundry?
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  Addressing an envelope? Some of that is just a sign of
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  our. Time.
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  That's a sign of our time and. Truly, you could, you could all
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  put that back to us while they were living in the house.
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  You know, my son has a way that he works me where he will get in
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  the kitchen. And now he lives on his own now,
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  but he'll get in the kitchen when he's home and he'll start
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  asking me a million questions about boiling noodles to, to the
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  point where I I'm coming. I well, what do I turn it on to?
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  What do I do now? This is a kid who will make
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  roasted Brussels sprouts and a chicken dish from a restaurant
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  that he'll copy. But when he's home, he forgets
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  all of it. Yeah.
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  So who are some other people that load their potatoes onto
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  our lap? I mean, we've got obviously
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  employers. I think also elderly parents
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  because either number one, they don't have anyone else because
• 17:30
  they've all died to throw their potatoes on.
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  So tag your in, which can be a lot, a lot of emotional baggage
• 17:40
  because that's where guilt comes in.
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  You feel guilty. You feel guilty if you don't do
• 17:47
  what someone is asking you to do.
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  Or if it's an elderly parent and they're not all there anymore.
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  I mean, it's all on you or a spouse who, you know, constantly
• 18:01
  says, can you do this when you're on your way home?
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  Or can you do that? Or they have problems in their
• 18:06
  own work or their own situation. And then they spew it out and
• 18:10
  then you call them later and go, how did that go?
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  And what, how did what go? You know, the thing that you
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  were like despondent over this morning.
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  You couldn't even like, eat breakfast, that thing.
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  Don't kid yourself, there is a physical reaction that can
• 18:24
  happen when someone hands you potatoes.
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  And I, I love that, obviously I love that as an example.
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  That's why I keep going back to it.
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  But my mom let me know that she had texted my daughter a few
• 18:37
  weeks ago maybe, and she never heard back from her.
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  My stomach hurt. Now I'm in between two draining
• 18:45
  people. You know, no offense, but when
• 18:48
  you have a physical reaction to something someone says, and then
• 18:53
  a physical reaction is something the other person says, and then
• 18:55
  now one person's got a problem with the other, Right now you're
• 18:58
  being drained. Because it's two people.
• 19:01
  Throwing the. Battery up to you.
• 19:03
  From two sides, yeah. Well, that's one thing I've not
• 19:07
  my circus, not my monkey. That's my other statement.
• 19:10
  If it's nothing to do with me personally, I don't get involved
• 19:14
  at all anymore. I'll say to the grandmother, I,
• 19:18
  you know, she's a busy kid, you know, I don't know, you could
• 19:22
  keep trying to text her. If it's my daughter.
• 19:24
  Listen, I don't want to get in the middle of this.
• 19:26
  If you don't want to call her, just text her.
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  If not, you know, I mean, I, I try not to get involved in
• 19:33
  everybody's little minutiae because it just is so
• 19:38
  emotionally draining at in my opinion, at this age, you don't
• 19:42
  have the bandwidth that you used to have to deal with every
• 19:46
  person in your life's stuff. So the take away that I'm
• 19:51
  hearing is that it's more about changing the way you're
• 19:55
  receiving the potatoes than it is about trying to change the
• 19:58
  people around you who are handing them to you.
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  In other words, stick your hands in your pocket and say no thank
• 20:02
  you when they come up to you trying to hand you a big bag of
• 20:05
  shit. Well, and I think you also the
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  first thing is you have to communicate like I am very good
• 20:11
  now. I wasn't a long time ago, but
• 20:13
  I'm very good about saying, OK, I've been going, going, going.
• 20:18
  I'm exhausted and you're really good now you say I'm going to
• 20:21
  take a nap. Like no ones interrupting my nap
• 20:24
  time. You have to be clear.
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  And if you can't be clear, you have to ask yourself, why can't
• 20:30
  I just tell the truth and be honest?
• 20:33
  What, what's the worst that can happen?
• 20:34
  And that's why I think people are scared to do it because you
• 20:37
  may lose that person that you deeply love or that you love
• 20:41
  because they don't like change. They want to spew everything to
• 20:46
  you, no matter who it is in your life and leave you with it and
• 20:50
  then move on because that's the pattern of the relationship.
• 20:55
  And so I think setting boundaries, telling people how
• 20:58
  you really, really feel like I can go, you know, me till 7,
• 21:03
  7:30, and then I'll probably bail out after that or 8:00,
• 21:07
  whatever. And stated ahead of time.
• 21:10
  So people aren't like, you know, friendships, a lot of it as you
• 21:14
  get older, you lose some friendships because everyone's
• 21:17
  going in a different world. Some people may be widows or
• 21:20
  widowers, you know, you have different friends.
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  And as you get older, they may just want you as the friend they
• 21:27
  vent to. You know what I mean?
• 21:30
  I, I think that I think that one of the best things you can do
• 21:35
  for yourself really is acknowledge what it is that is
• 21:41
  making you want people and that and that we're not accusing.
• 21:44
  And I'd be talking to myself more than anybody else.
• 21:47
  I'm saying like you're asking for it, you ask for it, you're
• 21:50
  trying to be a martyr. But in a way I am because I
• 21:52
  don't want a disconnection. So I have to decide what do I
• 21:56
  want more to feel needed to know that I'm the first call?
• 22:00
  Or do I want to be the first call or do I not want to be the
• 22:03
  first call? I'm going to ask myself that
• 22:05
  question because I love sometimes when my kids feel they
• 22:10
  can come to me with whatever it is that's going on in their
• 22:13
  life. But what I have to get away
• 22:15
  from, if I can't get away from that feeling of it's like
• 22:18
  they're an extension of me. So I'm physically feeling
• 22:21
  whatever pain they're feeling. If I can't get rid of that, I
• 22:24
  have to stop inviting them to share everything, right?
• 22:27
  And that's what I did you. Can't have it both ways you.
• 22:29
  Can't, and you really cannot have it both ways.
• 22:33
  You cannot spew everything out to your mom and then think she's
• 22:37
  going to forget about it and then you move on, especially
• 22:41
  after you've broken up with someone and then you get back
• 22:43
  together with them. I mean, we've seen that
• 22:45
  scenario, whether it's a child or a girlfriend.
• 22:49
  And then they've spewed every dramatic thing about this person
• 22:54
  and you're like, oh, I don't why are you even knowing this
• 22:57
  person? And then they get back together
• 22:59
  with him or they bring him over to your house.
• 23:00
  You're like, what the hell happened?
• 23:03
  So I just think I'm in the zone of I don't want to know unless
• 23:07
  it's I'm on a need to know basis.
• 23:09
  That's what I call it. And I also now learn to protect
• 23:13
  my emotions, meaning I don't have the energy to deal with
• 23:17
  everybody's drama. I used to.
• 23:19
  I used to be good at it. And you're very empathetic.
• 23:22
  You're a very empathetic person. Thank you, I feel like I'm very.
• 23:26
  Empathetic whether it's even from just what you're someone
• 23:29
  who could tear up at a commercial yes so.
• 23:32
  I'm you've had to. You are my crying friend.
• 23:36
  You, you, you. I think I'm the person who wants
• 23:39
  to feel like everyone needs me, and you're just the person whose
• 23:42
  heart gets touched so much. So we're both in a situation
• 23:46
  where we take on that feeling of that's what burns you out.
• 23:50
  That feeling of like I've got a problem, even though it doesn't
• 23:52
  affect my life at all. If you've got a problem, I feel
• 23:55
  like I've got a problem and then that's not feasible way to live
• 23:59
  your life. You can't carry everyone elses
• 24:01
  problems, you can only have your own.
• 24:03
  Well, and like I said earlier, when your kids like my older
• 24:07
  daughter is a mom now with a child and yes she asked for
• 24:12
  advice about her situation, whatever.
• 24:16
  But I always say to her, well, why don't you and him discuss
• 24:20
  this amongst yourselves? Because he's so smart at these
• 24:24
  things. And you know, it's your life and
• 24:28
  you know, I don't want to really get in the middle of things.
• 24:32
  And anymore I just, I feel like you're doing them a disservice
• 24:37
  as they get older, older. I mean, yours are still young,
• 24:41
  20. Mine are one of them is 34.
• 24:44
  So I mean, we're talking way older.
• 24:48
  You just need to, I feel like most of the decisions I made,
• 24:51
  even if they were bad ones, I learned a valuable lesson and I
• 24:56
  learned something from it. And I feel like if I keep
• 24:59
  fixing, because I'm known as the fixer, if I keep fixing and
• 25:02
  everything, no one's going to ever get to that point and be
• 25:06
  able to fix their own stuff and learn from their own stuff.
• 25:11
  Whether it's a girlfriend, a brother, a sister, anyone in
• 25:15
  your life, it you have to learn to be honest and open
• 25:20
  communication. What's the worst that can happen
• 25:23
  if they don't want you in their life anymore?
• 25:26
  I would say that's pretty selfish that I only want you if
• 25:29
  I could dump on you. If not, you serve no purpose to
• 25:32
  me. You know, another analogy could
• 25:34
  be if you've ever worked in a workplace that's pretty
• 25:37
  corporate and they have work tickets where like, let's say
• 25:41
  you have an issue with your computer.
• 25:42
  I know when I at one of the TV stations I worked for, if you
• 25:46
  had an issue, you would put in a or even when you call a company
• 25:49
  to complain, they, they, they open a ticket.
• 25:51
  So they by opening a ticket means we're working on your
• 25:54
  issue for you. And we will, once it's resolved,
• 25:56
  we will close your ticket. Well, if every time somebody
• 25:58
  calls you with a problem, you open a ticket for them, you
• 26:02
  know, imagine the burnout an IT guy at a company would feel if
• 26:05
  somebody from every department in that company had called him
• 26:08
  on the same day or same week or even same month, and you had all
• 26:11
  these open tickets with no resolution.
• 26:13
  Maybe their computer was fixed and they never told you.
• 26:16
  Or maybe it's just still ongoing and it's waiting for you to give
• 26:19
  it attention. Instead, you could just say
• 26:22
  here's what you can do to fix it.
• 26:24
  You're on your own. Or an open-ended question like
• 26:28
  are you asking for my advice? That's what I love, that that's
• 26:32
  what I say all the time now. Are you asking for my?
• 26:35
  Because inevitably whatever you say gets thrown back at you if
• 26:40
  it didn't go the way they wanted it.
• 26:42
  And well, you told me to do that.
• 26:44
  You said it would work, and then you have that problem.
• 26:48
  So that's where I am now are. You asking?
• 26:50
  Are you asking me what I would do if it were me?
• 26:52
  Right. And if not, if they say, well,
• 26:55
  you know, I, I guess or I don't, yeah, then say this is what I
• 27:00
  would do. But that doesn't mean you have
• 27:02
  to do it. It just throws it kind of back
• 27:05
  out of knowing that every time anybody says that, you're saying
• 27:09
  that. I love that.
• 27:11
  Thank you. I love it.
• 27:14
  You should have a podcast with words of wisdom like that.
• 27:16
  That is excellent. Well, are you asking me for my
• 27:19
  advice? Right, because through the years
• 27:22
  I have learned when you give advice, they'll act like I
• 27:27
  didn't ask for your advice, even though they really did.
• 27:31
  So I, I, I think, I think it's best just to say, are you asking
• 27:37
  me or are you just venting? And then maybe they're just
• 27:41
  venting. OK, great, great words of wisdom
• 27:45
  there. We appreciate everybody for
• 27:46
  being with us and for giving us that topic, OK, because that is
• 27:51
  a topic that we've really enjoyed kind of delving into.
• 27:53
  We can go deeper into it another time.
• 27:55
  So thanks, everybody. How should we close this time?
• 27:59
  When people are handing you the potatoes, you can let the
• 28:02
  potatoes go. And don't look back.