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7: The Hidden Connection Between Busyness and Menopause · Midlife Rising

• 0:00
  Jen: Welcome.
• 0:01
  Jen: This is the Midlife Rising podcast.
• 0:03
  Jen: If you are a busy midlife woman who feels like you're running at full speed and you can't keep it up much longer, this episode is for you.
• 0:15
  Jen: This is most of us in midlife.
• 0:19
  Jen: We all feel really busy.
• 0:22
  Jen: And maybe if you're anything like me, you've started to realize that maybe you're part of the reason for the busyness, but you still can't seem to stop yourself.
• 0:34
  Jen: And I suspect that you're probably feeling like you're holding so many pieces together that you're terrified of dropping a ball.
• 0:42
  Jen: I definitely feel like I'm going to miss something.
• 0:46
  Jen: It's Sherry here, in case I didn't mention that.
• 0:48
  Jen: And today we're going to uncover the hidden mistakes that feed this kind of chaotic feeling.
• 0:54
  Jen: We're going to explore how subconscious patterns keep you stuck in overdrive.
• 1:00
  Jen: And we're going to reveal the maybe surprising patterns that are stealing your time and your calm.
• 1:08
  Jen: Jen is an expert on busyness, so I'm going to pick her brain on all of this.
• 1:13
  Jen: So if you're ready, let's begin.
• 1:25
  Jen: Welcome to Midlife Rising.
• 1:28
  Jen: We're your hosts, Sherry and Jen, twin sisters and modern medicine women, here to help you rewire your stress response, balance your hormones, and reclaim your feminine power.
• 1:38
  Jen: Every episode is a rebellion against the rules you never agreed to and a return to yourself.
• 1:43
  Jen: Join us where midlife isn't a crisis, it's a catalyst.
• 1:47
  Jen: Hey Jen.
• 1:48
  Jen: Hey Cher.
• 1:49
  Jen: Okay.
• 1:50
  Jen: I think we should dive straight into the good stuff, as we normally do in our personal conversations.
• 1:56
  Jen: So I've got some questions for you.
• 1:59
  Jen: First one, you and I have talked about this, but for our listeners, can you talk about what your life looked like five years ago that really led you to this work?
• 2:08
  Jen: I was in the middle of my PhD writing my dissertation.
• 2:13
  Jen: I was, I had two consulting jobs on the go.
• 2:18
  Jen: And I was teaching at a college level.
• 2:22
  Jen: And I had a two-year-old.
• 2:23
  Jen: So there was a lot going on in my life.
• 2:26
  Jen: And I felt that I had to do all of this because of financial pressures.
• 2:32
  Jen: So I was crazy busy.
• 2:33
  Jen: Like it was pretty insane.
• 2:34
  Jen: I was working weekends.
• 2:35
  Jen: I was trying to like, I was setting a rule for myself that I would only work six days a week.
• 2:40
  Jen: Only six.
• 2:42
  Jen: And I kept saying, when I finish this, it's all it's going to slow down.
• 2:47
  Jen: When I get through my literature review, it's all going to slow down.
• 2:51
  Jen: And that kept not happening.
• 2:53
  Jen: So eventually I had a conversation with my husband about dropping some of the paid work.
• 3:00
  Jen: Because I was just like, I just want to finish this dissertation.
• 3:03
  Jen: This is taking forever.
• 3:05
  Jen: Let me just finish this.
• 3:06
  Jen: And so we agreed that I would stop doing the consulting work.
• 3:10
  Jen: After the projects were done, dropped that.
• 3:14
  Jen: And I thought it was all going to get better.
• 3:15
  Jen: And then it didn't.
• 3:18
  Jen: And then I kept saying, when I'm done my dissertation, then it's going to, then I'll slow down.
• 3:23
  Jen: And then it's going to get better.
• 3:25
  Jen: And I kept doing this.
• 3:27
  Jen: When something happens, when this project over is over, then it's going to be slower.
• 3:33
  Jen: So I kept when then myself over and over.
• 3:39
  Jen: And when I finished my PhD in 2022, I didn't, I didn't stop.
• 3:48
  Jen: I I barely, I was going to take a month off.
• 3:51
  Jen: I barely took two weeks off.
• 3:52
  Jen: During those two weeks, I was doing stuff around the house that I had, you know, decluttering and stuff that I had been putting off for so long.
• 3:59
  Jen: And I realized, I kind of knew it before that.
• 4:03
  Jen: I realized that I was doing it to myself.
• 4:08
  Jen: Okay, before we go into that part, I want to just jump back to something that you said a couple minutes ago around the when and then.
• 4:18
  Jen: Because I think like I hear that all the time.
• 4:22
  Jen: In fact, I have a perfect example of uh what a conversation that we had in my book club recently.
• 4:29
  Jen: This is if anybody from my book club is listening, thank you for all of the perfect examples.
• 4:37
  Jen: Um I know you're always talking about your book club.
• 4:40
  Jen: I know.
• 4:41
  Jen: And I love my book club.
• 4:42
  Jen: It like it's one of the joys of my life.
• 4:44
  Jen: And um one of the girls suggested that we all learn how to play pickleball.
• 4:51
  Jen: And it was kind of funny because she said, I feel like we're gonna miss out on part of our retirement if we don't learn how to do this.
• 4:57
  Jen: So a bunch of us chimed in and said, Yep.
• 4:59
  Jen: And I'm one of those people that like, if I decide I'm gonna do something, then I'm gonna do it.
• 5:04
  Jen: So we decided like Wednesdays are gonna be the day.
• 5:06
  Jen: I went and bought myself a pickleball pedal.
• 5:10
  Jen: I wanted to call it a racket.
• 5:12
  Jen: And then it didn't happen.
• 5:15
  Jen: Like I think we went out two Wednesdays, and then I would ask, like, who's in every Wednesday?
• 5:21
  Jen: And and there was always something, you know, somebody's at the cottage and somebody else is just busy that night, got home from late, from work late, and always an excuse for not being able to do it.
• 5:33
  Jen: And so, anyways, one of the girls, we were at our actual book club, and one of the girls said, you know, maybe, maybe we should pick this back up in the fall.
• 5:43
  Jen: And I started laughing because you and I have talked about this.
• 5:47
  Jen: And I'm like, you know, she started to say, and people started to chime in.
• 5:51
  Jen: They're like, Yeah, you know, like I think things, it's really busy this summer.
• 5:55
  Jen: I think things should start to lighten up in the fall.
• 5:57
  Jen: And I started to laugh and said, like, listen to you guys, like really, it's not gonna lighten up in the fall.
• 6:04
  Jen: Fall is busier than summer, like everything ramps up again in the fall.
• 6:08
  Jen: Yep, it's busier than ever.
• 6:10
  Jen: Yeah, just especially if you have kids.
• 6:12
  Jen: Like everybody feels so busy in September.
• 6:15
  Jen: Mm-hmm.
• 6:15
  Jen: If you have children because it's back to school.
• 6:18
  Jen: Yep.
• 6:18
  Jen: Um, and even if you have older children, like you're you're maybe helping your university age kids back to school.
• 6:24
  Jen: Um, you like it's still work starts to get busy again.
• 6:28
  Jen: Everybody's back from vacation.
• 6:30
  Jen: And so they're like, okay, let's go.
• 6:32
  Jen: It's go time.
• 6:34
  Jen: And so I just wanted to mention that as like, this is how this shows up in everyday life.
• 6:41
  Jen: It does, it's not just at work.
• 6:43
  Jen: Like, we do this to ourselves all the time.
• 6:45
  Jen: We put things off, especially the fun stuff.
• 6:49
  Jen: When and then, like when this happens, then I'll then things will lighten up.
• 6:54
  Jen: I know, especially the fun stuff.
• 6:56
  Jen: Um I hear it all the time.
• 6:58
  Jen: Um, New Year's resolution.
• 7:00
  Jen: I'm gonna set better boundaries when in January when things are slower, when it's easier.
• 7:05
  Jen: I'm gonna slow down in January.
• 7:07
  Jen: Like it happened, I'm gonna slow down for the summer because I want to enjoy my summer.
• 7:13
  Jen: It happens all the time and then it doesn't happen.
• 7:15
  Jen: It just doesn't work.
• 7:16
  Jen: We can't wait till life slows down to slow down because life doesn't slow down.
• 7:20
  Jen: Oh, that's such a good way of putting it.
• 7:22
  Jen: Yeah, exactly.
• 7:24
  Jen: Okay.
• 7:25
  Jen: So what's the what's the big mistake we're making?
• 7:29
  Jen: Uh there's there's several mistakes that women, if you're like us, uh, are making.
• 7:35
  Jen: But the biggest mistake that I see is blaming it on how busy it is at work, how busy life is, like what I've just said, how busy the situation is.
• 7:48
  Jen: External.
• 7:49
  Jen: Yeah, because it's not busyness is not an external problem.
• 7:54
  Jen: Busyness is an internal problem.
• 7:57
  Jen: And that might sound harsh when I first say that to people.
• 8:00
  Jen: It's like, no, I have a crazy busy job and too many demands on my time.
• 8:05
  Jen: And so that's what we do.
• 8:07
  Jen: We blame it on everything.
• 8:08
  Jen: My job's crazy busy.
• 8:10
  Jen: I've got a billion demands on my time.
• 8:12
  Jen: I've got kids.
• 8:13
  Jen: I've got to run them around.
• 8:14
  Jen: I've got to do this, I gotta do it.
• 8:16
  Jen: The to-do list is too long.
• 8:17
  Jen: And it feels like if I can just add to that, when I was in that, it felt like I couldn't let up anywhere.
• 8:26
  Jen: Like I couldn't, all these demands on me, like I couldn't, I was like, well, if we want to main, like we have all these financial demands as well that we need to meet.
• 8:38
  Jen: And I have people that I I want to maintain relationships with.
• 8:42
  Jen: And like it feels like it really does feel like external pressure.
• 8:48
  Jen: Like there isn't something that I can just let go of.
• 8:51
  Jen: Yeah.
• 8:51
  Jen: And I would say that's actually the second biggest mistake that people make is thinking that they've got to drop something in order to slow down.
• 9:02
  Jen: Like they say to me, I just need to reprioritize.
• 9:06
  Jen: And they think they've got to like drop something big.
• 9:10
  Jen: And then they can't do it because that's gonna feel weird.
• 9:12
  Jen: Like, especially, let's say you're a high performer at work.
• 9:16
  Jen: You can't, like, people in workplaces say this to me all the time.
• 9:19
  Jen: They're like, well, that's gonna be weird.
• 9:20
  Jen: Like, people expect stuff from me.
• 9:22
  Jen: And I'm the I'm the go-to person for things and I'm reliable.
• 9:27
  Jen: And that now that's gonna be weird if I suddenly just say, no, I'm not gonna do that big project.
• 9:32
  Jen: Like, so we'll get to it later, but it's not about dropping a big thing and reprioritizing your life.
• 9:42
  Jen: Because that's also making it about all the external stuff.
• 9:47
  Jen: That's making the solution about the external stuff.
• 9:50
  Jen: Exactly.
• 9:51
  Jen: The minute you drop one thing, then another thing will jump in to fill its place.
• 9:55
  Jen: And that will always be the case unless you start working on the internal problem.
• 10:01
  Jen: Okay.
• 10:02
  Jen: I do, Cher, I do want to say one thing first is that if you, our listener, are in a culture at work where, you know, a toxic kind of culture where the culture is crazy busy and you're all expected to work 12-hour days or weekends or whatever.
• 10:24
  Jen: I have worked in those kinds of environments.
• 10:26
  Jen: You have, Cher, leave as soon as you can.
• 10:29
  Jen: Find something else.
• 10:31
  Jen: But because it it's going to be even harder for you to buck the trend in that kind of culture.
• 10:37
  Jen: We were talking about this earlier.
• 10:39
  Jen: Like I've worked for several different companies, and one of them was very much like that.
• 10:45
  Jen: Although on the surface of it, you know, they my leaders would always say, like, you're not expected to be here past five.
• 10:53
  Jen: And yet, you know, they request something of me, you know, as I'm on my way out for dinner on a Friday night.
• 11:00
  Jen: And I'm like, well, and when do you need this by?
• 11:04
  Jen: By Monday.
• 11:06
  Jen: So the like, yeah, we were always told the expectation is not that you need to work on weekends or evenings.
• 11:14
  Jen: But then you felt like there was that pressure because they'd ask for something at the end of the day and you'd feel like, well, now I have to do this.
• 11:24
  Jen: Yeah.
• 11:24
  Jen: Like you you'd feel guilty if you didn't.
• 11:26
  Jen: Yeah.
• 11:26
  Jen: Well, and in my culture, we were expecting like it was if you didn't show up at eight o'clock in the morning in the office and work till five, at least six, if not, like most people were in the office by 7 a.m.
• 11:38
  Jen: And staying till six or seven, and then taking home work on the weekend.
• 11:42
  Jen: And and that was expected.
• 11:43
  Jen: Like they weren't saying we expect you to leave at five.
• 11:45
  Jen: They were saying we expect you to be in the office by eight.
• 11:47
  Jen: Yeah.
• 11:48
  Jen: That's yeah.
• 11:50
  Jen: That's, I mean, I think there's a lot of companies out there now who who are like that.
• 11:53
  Jen: And even I almost wonder whether whether the like the whole work from home thing has just blurred all the lines.
• 12:04
  Jen: We started working from home and now there's no bookends to the day.
• 12:10
  Jen: And you got in the habit of working at night because during because you'd have to take a few hours off during the day to take care of your kids or do something, take care of something.
• 12:20
  Jen: And then you end up and and then that doesn't change when actu when you're like back in the office or or not, like even working from home, you're still doing that.
• 12:30
  Jen: That is, it's it's one of the biggest complaints that I get from clients now is they're working from home and they're actually just like, I just want an office to go to so I can leave my work there.
• 12:39
  Jen: Cause now it's just impeding on all of my home life.
• 12:43
  Jen: So yeah, it's that's a that is an external situation thing.
• 12:47
  Jen: And what it requires is stronger boundaries from us.
• 12:51
  Jen: And we can talk about boundaries in a bit, but um, but that is one of, well, we can't talk about it now.
• 12:58
  Jen: It's one of the mistakes that women make.
• 13:00
  Jen: The women that get are getting crazy busy by midlife and that it's not sustainable in midlife anymore, is that they haven't been and aren't setting strong boundaries.
• 13:09
  Jen: Right.
• 13:10
  Jen: And why aren't they doing that?
• 13:13
  Jen: Why aren't we doing that?
• 13:14
  Jen: Because we feel guilty and selfish.
• 13:17
  Jen: Yeah.
• 13:18
  Jen: I have a pretty good idea of where that comes from.
• 13:21
  Jen: Can you talk about the thing this we're getting to the crux of the real problem here?
• 13:26
  Jen: What I wanted to talk about first was some of the things that our listeners might be doing to fix the problem.
• 13:34
  Jen: Yes.
• 13:35
  Jen: That's important.
• 13:36
  Jen: Let's go there first.
• 13:37
  Jen: That are helpful but not working.
• 13:40
  Jen: So, because this is what I was told, and I thought I was just going to be able to fix my problem and figure it out by myself for years before I finally got help.
• 13:52
  Jen: Because I was doing all the things that magazines told me and the media told me, and that was meditate so you can reduce because it reduces your stress and it tells your nervous nervous system that it's it's okay, you're calm, you're safe.
• 14:06
  Jen: Or practice yoga, exercise, continue to like, because that's gonna help release stress.
• 14:12
  Jen: All these things to help release stress, take self-care.
• 14:17
  Jen: I was doing all the stuff, and it would help, like, yeah, okay, I could meditate and wind down for my day, but I realized in fact, I was sitting in a meditation one day and went, none of this is gonna work unless I actually get to the root of the problem of why I'm so stressed in the first place.
• 14:36
  Jen: Yeah, the thing that I hear so often from, because I teach a lot of meditation, and so many women have said to me, Oh, I can't meditate.
• 14:45
  Jen: My to-do list is just running through my mind the whole time.
• 14:49
  Jen: And I think what's happening there is you try to sit down and meditate, and then your nervous system ramps up.
• 14:57
  Jen: Absolutely.
• 14:58
  Jen: And actually, um Sue Belton wrote a book called Screw Meditation.
• 15:03
  Jen: Oh, that's interesting.
• 15:05
  Jen: Because she was walking the park one day going, screw meditation, this doesn't work.
• 15:10
  Jen: Um, because and she's a coach as well.
• 15:12
  Jen: She realized that meditation doesn't work for everybody because some for some people it's just sitting in absolute torture because their nervous system feels so unsafe.
• 15:22
  Jen: On the other hand, sitting for five minutes and allowing your to-do list to run through your head can help your brain to process it.
• 15:31
  Jen: Because that's what meditation is is like allowing, is watching your thoughts.
• 15:36
  Jen: Yes.
• 15:38
  Jen: It's not trying to stop your thoughts.
• 15:40
  Jen: Yeah.
• 15:40
  Jen: It's trying, it's allowing your thoughts to run and then observing your thoughts.
• 15:45
  Jen: So if you're observing your to-do list run in your head, it's that can that helps your brain to process it.
• 15:51
  Jen: I have said that so many times that meditation is not about clearing your mind, it's about noticing what's filling it up.
• 15:59
  Jen: That's a great way to say it.
• 16:02
  Jen: So, so those are some of the things that that I see women trying to do to fix it.
• 16:09
  Jen: And or the other thing is like they try to like discipline themselves into being less busy or setting better boundaries.
• 16:19
  Jen: And that doesn't work because there's no amount of willpower that will help if you have these internal drivers that are telling you to be busy.
• 16:29
  Jen: And they do the when then, like I'm just gonna work harder and longer till I get over this hump, and then I'm gonna slow down.
• 16:35
  Jen: So none of those things work to fix the problem.
• 16:38
  Jen: Well, and one of my clients said to me yesterday, she said, and she has said this a couple of times, and she said it again because hasn't like she hasn't been able to kind of get beyond it.
• 16:51
  Jen: She will say, Okay, at the end of the day, I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna read a book, or I'm gonna go out into the garden and and have just some relaxation time or whatever.
• 17:04
  Jen: And, you know, two hours later, she finds herself at still at her laptop, yes, not having done anything productive, like really just, you know, clearing out her inbox or like whatever, like nothing really truly productive.
• 17:21
  Jen: And she called it procrastination.
• 17:25
  Jen: And I think something else is going on there.
• 17:28
  Jen: Like that, that is trying to discipline yourself into going and doing the thing, the like the the relaxing, the self-care, whatever.
• 17:37
  Jen: And there's something keeping her from doing that.
• 17:40
  Jen: That's more than just total.
• 17:44
  Jen: Totally.
• 17:44
  Jen: It's why this whole, this whole self-care industry communication media stuff drives me crazy.
• 17:53
  Jen: Because they're always telling us to take self-care and that's gonna help you reduce your stress and da-da-da.
• 17:58
  Jen: But many women and my client, like our clients come to us because they can't.
• 18:06
  Jen: First of all, because self-care feels like this big thing.
• 18:10
  Jen: Like it's gotta be a bath, it's gotta be a massage, go get a facial.
• 18:15
  Jen: Like we the media has turned self-care into a thing.
• 18:20
  Jen: Yeah, an event.
• 18:21
  Jen: And we don't always feel like we can take, yeah, we can't take an hour out of the day to go get a or more to get a massage or whatever.
• 18:28
  Jen: So there's this misconception about what self-care actually is.
• 18:33
  Jen: And the second thing that that they miss is that self-care feels impossible for crazy busy women because they they feel like they can't take a break because they might drop a ball.
• 18:46
  Jen: There's too much pressure at work, and they feel guilty then.
• 18:49
  Jen: When they actually do it and selfish.
• 18:51
  Jen: When if they if they actually do it, they feel guilty and selfish.
• 18:55
  Jen: And then there's overthinking after, like, oh man, now I took that hour out for myself and now I have fewer hours to work on that presentation that's due.
• 19:02
  Jen: Right.
• 19:02
  Jen: So like they spend the whole time, or even like at your kids' soccer game.
• 19:07
  Jen: One one client recently told me this.
• 19:09
  Jen: She said, I sit there and I calculate the hours that I now have the the fewer, like the time that I have left to work on whatever, the presentation.
• 19:20
  unknown: Yeah.
• 19:21
  Jen: So she's unable to be present and relax.
• 19:23
  Jen: It's counterproductive.
• 19:24
  Jen: Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't work.
• 19:26
  Jen: So go back to the um, you were gonna say something about the self-care.
• 19:32
  Jen: Oh, it's actually kind of like a tip.
• 19:35
  Jen: And that is that self-care doesn't have to be big.
• 19:38
  Jen: It self-care is like I'm in the shower even in the morning for five minutes, just saying, I am nurturing myself in the shower.
• 19:49
  Jen: I'm nourishing myself.
• 19:50
  Jen: Instead of what I used to do was I'd think about what I what I was gonna wear.
• 19:54
  Jen: I was thinking about what I was gonna make for my lunch, what I had to do that day.
• 19:58
  Jen: Like the to-do list was already running in the shower.
• 20:00
  Jen: And I finally stopped and said, okay, I'm just gonna enjoy feeling the water come over my head.
• 20:06
  Jen: Because that's when all the good ideas come.
• 20:08
  Jen: It's true.
• 20:10
  Jen: Presence really is self-care these days.
• 20:14
  Jen: Just being present for a moment, you know, when you're out walking or when, even when you're exercising, like when I'm when I'm working out in the morning, sometimes I'm like barely paying attention to the guy on the screen.
• 20:30
  Jen: I'm thinking about what's next.
• 20:33
  Jen: I think what you're saying is, can we just be present and find the joy or the bliss or the whatever it is in the moment?
• 20:45
  Jen: And that is self-care.
• 20:47
  Jen: You know what?
• 20:48
  Jen: A lot of people are like, oh yeah, here's another person telling me to be present.
• 20:51
  Jen: So another a couple other ideas for self-care is just take the supplement that's in the cupboard.
• 20:57
  Jen: Like take 30 seconds to take the supplement because I know how many women walk straight by it.
• 21:04
  Jen: I've done this myself, it's on the counter.
• 21:06
  Jen: And I walk straight by it because I'm like, oh, I'll just take it later because I got to get back to my desk.
• 21:10
  Jen: Oh, yeah.
• 21:11
  Jen: The number of my clients who tell me they have a supplement graveyard in the back of their cupboard because they're not, yeah.
• 21:18
  Jen: They know they keep, they don't want to throw them away because they know someday they need they need to take it.
• 21:22
  Jen: They would like to, they'd like to find find the benefits of those supplements, but they can't get themselves to take it.
• 21:30
  unknown: Yeah.
• 21:31
  Jen: Yeah.
• 21:31
  Jen: Yeah.
• 21:32
  Jen: And then until they expire.
• 21:33
  Jen: Yeah.
• 21:34
  Jen: So should we move on to what is really underlying this?
• 21:38
  Jen: You sort of alluded to it, but let's be a bit more specific.
• 21:42
  Jen: There are three not things, but three things that are that are causing this.
• 21:50
  Jen: And the first one actually is external.
• 21:53
  Jen: Like remember, I said earlier that it's not the external situation, it's internal.
• 21:58
  Jen: So it is internal.
• 22:00
  Jen: Beliefs about busyness that we have absorbed from society.
• 22:07
  Jen: Like you gotta hustle to be successful.
• 22:11
  Jen: Money doesn't grow on trees.
• 22:13
  Jen: Um busyness is what makes you successful.
• 22:17
  Jen: And what that has turned into is busyness means I'm successful.
• 22:23
  Jen: So it used to be cause and effect.
• 22:25
  Jen: Hustle leads to success.
• 22:28
  Jen: Now it's hustle equals success.
• 22:32
  Jen: Yeah, that's so true.
• 22:34
  Jen: I'm if I'm busy, I must be important.
• 22:36
  Jen: And so then I must be successful.
• 22:38
  Jen: That's why Cheryl, like I caught myself a couple years ago at breakfast with Diane.
• 22:44
  Jen: Mm-hmm.
• 22:45
  Jen: Our sit our sister, Diane.
• 22:48
  Jen: And we were talking about work and our day, like what our day looked like or whatever.
• 22:52
  Jen: And she starts her day at eight.
• 22:54
  Jen: She works like she's been working eight till five for years.
• 22:58
  Jen: And I didn't want to tell her that I start my day at nine.
• 23:02
  Jen: There was this slight embarrassment in front of our own sister, which is ridiculous.
• 23:08
  Jen: But what I was feeling was the judgment from society about starting my day later, which means I'm less busy.
• 23:20
  Jen: So I must not be as successful.
• 23:22
  Jen: I bet you there's some listeners who can relate to that.
• 23:25
  Jen: It's it is so pervasive.
• 23:27
  Jen: Like a lot of people will know this too.
• 23:29
  Jen: Like, yes, we praise busyness.
• 23:32
  Jen: And like one example, the way this came up in my life years ago, was I was working at um a company that was actually a very easy company to work for.
• 23:40
  Jen: It was Seagram Universal, um, a distillery.
• 23:45
  Jen: Like we made a lot of profit, and nobody worked past five.
• 23:50
  Jen: And so I was working in this job.
• 23:53
  Jen: I was working nine to five.
• 23:54
  Jen: I had easy days, and I met up with all my MBA friends like soon after we had graduated, and they were all working in finance and whatever, and they were all working these 80-hour weeks and they were bragging about it.
• 24:05
  Jen: Yes.
• 24:07
  Jen: Yeah.
• 24:07
  Jen: Oh, I know that feeling, or I know that I know those people.
• 24:11
  Jen: And they were making fun of my cushy job.
• 24:14
  Jen: And I just wanted to shrink.
• 24:15
  Jen: I was like, I must not be as successful.
• 24:20
  Jen: So it is, it's reinforced by society.
• 24:23
  Jen: And if we've internalized it, like we've taken on this belief and we a part of us believes it ourselves, ourselves, then you will stay busy because you won't feel valuable unless you are busy.
• 24:38
  Jen: Well, and going back to the conversation that we were having earlier about the culture of your workplace and how that can really instill itself in you.
• 24:47
  Jen: It's interesting to me that you were working for a company that did not have that busy, like work beyond five sort of culture.
• 24:55
  Jen: And yet you still felt that pressure from your friends who were working these long hours.
• 25:03
  Jen: Yeah.
• 25:04
  Jen: And I wanted them.
• 25:06
  Jen: Isn't that ridiculous?
• 25:07
  Jen: I was 27 years old, and I wanted that.
• 25:13
  Jen: And so I got it because I was predisposed to it by my childhood, which I'm going to talk about in a second.
• 25:21
  Jen: And so yeah, I got busy and I stayed that way until I burnt out.
• 25:25
  Jen: The second thing is that busyness acts like an addiction.
• 25:33
  Jen: Yes.
• 25:34
  Jen: So, like any other addiction.
• 25:36
  Jen: When we feel vulnerable, when we feel criticized, when we feel self-doubt, all those negative narratives that run in the back of our minds that we don't notice or that we notice but push away, busyness helps us to push them down.
• 25:55
  Jen: Even negative emotions like anger, grief, sadness, and shame.
• 26:03
  Jen: When we feel those emotions and we want to run away from them, we get busy.
• 26:09
  Jen: Oh, I totally do this.
• 26:10
  Jen: And yeah, busyness numb them just like any other numbing addiction.
• 26:16
  Jen: Alcohol, drugs, Netflix.
• 26:19
  Jen: Yeah, I have done, I definitely have done that.
• 26:21
  Jen: I didn't realize I was doing it until I watched mom do it.
• 26:26
  Jen: She got angry about something and started cleaning up, washing dishes, like furiously washing dishes.
• 26:33
  Jen: And you know, and and then it's rage cleaning.
• 26:36
  Jen: Yes, rage cleaning.
• 26:38
  Jen: I totally do that.
• 26:39
  Jen: And I didn't know that I was doing that until Mike pointed it out, my husband, and said, What are you mad about?
• 26:46
  Jen: I can tell he didn't call it rage cleaning, but that's what I was doing.
• 26:49
  Jen: Because it helps us, like when when Sherwin would criticize me for something, uh, not that he did it all often, but every once in a while, he'd criticize me for not putting stuff away.
• 27:02
  Jen: And so what would I do?
• 27:04
  Jen: And I, this would trigger me like crazy because I do put stuff away.
• 27:08
  Jen: And I used to put all his stuff away too.
• 27:11
  Jen: And so I get really triggered by it, and I would start, then I would start cleaning up.
• 27:16
  Jen: Because not just to off like not just to offset what he said to put stuff away, but or like even so here's a better example.
• 27:29
  Jen: Cleaning out the dishwasher.
• 27:31
  Jen: I had asked him a billion times to stack it neatly.
• 27:35
  Jen: And it's a guy thing, they don't know how to stack dishwashers.
• 27:39
  Jen: I think it's a guy thing.
• 27:40
  Jen: I don't know.
• 27:40
  Jen: It's a guy thing.
• 27:41
  Jen: Because my friends tell me the exact same things about their husbands, but I've also seen reels of husbands who stack nicely and their wives don't.
• 27:48
  Jen: So um, I I'd be like, if he would stack the dishwasher wrong, according to me, the control freak, I would get all triggered.
• 27:59
  Jen: I'd be like, he doesn't listen to me.
• 28:00
  Jen: He doesn't do what I ask.
• 28:02
  Jen: And then I would start fixing it.
• 28:05
  Jen: And one day I was sitting there fixing it, going, I'm I'm making myself busier than I need to be because this does not have to be stacked properly.
• 28:15
  Jen: It will still wash.
• 28:17
  Jen: I'm making busyness for myself.
• 28:19
  Jen: Oh, yeah.
• 28:20
  Jen: Oh my gosh.
• 28:21
  Jen: I bet you there are some listeners out there who are like, yep, I restack the dishwasher.
• 28:25
  Jen: Yeah.
• 28:26
  Jen: I still have to stop myself doing it.
• 28:27
  Jen: I know.
• 28:28
  Jen: I still have to stop myself.
• 28:29
  Jen: Anyway, so um, so it can act like an addiction.
• 28:33
  Jen: And just another note on that is like I used to think that workaholism, like workaholics, workaholics, quote unquote, because that's not really a word, but they love work.
• 28:45
  Jen: That's what I thought.
• 28:47
  Jen: And that is completely untrue.
• 28:50
  Jen: It's that they can't stop themselves.
• 28:53
  Jen: It's it's because they like you want to stop, but you feel like you have to do a certain amount in order to prove that you're worthy of your role or your pay, or you're proving your value at work.
• 29:04
  Jen: And a lot of the my clients will say this to me.
• 29:06
  Jen: They're like, I'm proving my value.
• 29:08
  Jen: I know I am.
• 29:09
  Jen: Oh, like they actually will say that out loud.
• 29:12
  Jen: Yeah, they know it and they don't know how to stop it.
• 29:16
  Jen: Yes.
• 29:16
  Jen: One of my clients called it the um, I'm hustling for my worth.
• 29:21
  Jen: That's exactly what we've been told to do.
• 29:24
  Jen: So it's an addiction in in two senses.
• 29:28
  Jen: One in that it helps us numb out the the emotions we don't want to feel.
• 29:33
  Jen: It's an addiction because if we don't feel like we have value, then we will stay busy, uh like addicted to busyness until we feel worthy internally.
• 29:47
  Jen: So that's why my clients know that they're trying to prove their worth with this busyness or by like saving the day.
• 29:55
  Jen: Like they jump in to solve the problem and save the day.
• 29:58
  Jen: But they can't, they're like, but I don't know how to stop myself.
• 30:02
  Jen: And the so that's that's the crux of it is it's an addiction like any other.
• 30:09
  Jen: You can't stop it till you feel worthy and deserving and valuable.
• 30:13
  Jen: Back to, and maybe this is number three.
• 30:14
  Jen: I think you said there was three, right?
• 30:16
  Jen: Number three is that our brains don't feel safe.
• 30:19
  Jen: It's connected.
• 30:20
  Jen: Our brains don't feel safe resting or playing.
• 30:24
  Jen: So we we develop coping mechanisms in our childhood and beliefs and fears that are now driving our behavior today.
• 30:34
  Jen: In this case, that keep us busy.
• 30:35
  Jen: They drive other behaviors too.
• 30:38
  Jen: They keep us busy.
• 30:40
  Jen: Is that where you're going?
• 30:41
  Jen: We want to talk about this, but the thing that I wanted to go back to was I don't, we didn't really talk about like we talked about how society like sort of values b busyness.
• 30:54
  Jen: Um but I don't think we called out like the ideal, the identity of the busy mom.
• 31:04
  Jen: Okay, let's just go back to number one for a second, which is um all the identities that society, Western society anyway, praises the busy executive, the busy mom, the strong and independent woman who does it all, Wonder Woman.
• 31:23
  Jen: We glorify the people who live up to those identities.
• 31:28
  Jen: Even like the mom, we say, yeah, she just served everybody.
• 31:34
  Jen: Oh, the martyring.
• 31:35
  Jen: That was a wonderful, the martyring.
• 31:37
  Jen: We think that that was a wonderful trait.
• 31:39
  Jen: Okay.
• 31:40
  Jen: I had a conversation, and maybe I've talked about this on one of our other episodes.
• 31:46
  Jen: But I had a friend who lost his mom.
• 31:49
  Jen: We probably had this conversation a couple of years ago now.
• 31:52
  Jen: And he started talking about her with so much reverence that it broke my heart.
• 32:02
  Jen: But what he said also broke my heart for her, because what he was revering was her selflessness.
• 32:14
  Jen: You know, he lived in a family of four boys and they lived on a farm, and he said she was so selfless, always taking care of us, never taking care of herself.
• 32:24
  Jen: And I just thought, oh my gosh.
• 32:27
  Jen: Like she never got to take care of herself.
• 32:31
  Jen: And I think it's that martyring, this praise that we hear from, I think more so men than women will say things like that that makes us want to be like that.
• 32:45
  Jen: Women say it too.
• 32:47
  Jen: Um sometimes they say it with more like resentment because they can't live up to that long.
• 32:54
  Jen: Yeah.
• 32:54
  Jen: Oh, yes, I've had a friend who said that.
• 32:56
  Jen: And then, like for women who don't have children, then you've got, well, I can't have the mom part.
• 33:04
  Jen: I can't live up to that busy mom thing.
• 33:06
  Jen: So I'm gonna get busy.
• 33:08
  Jen: Oh, yeah.
• 33:08
  Jen: If I'm not, if I can't have the mom part, I'm sure as heck gonna be busy.
• 33:13
  Jen: It's not a conscious thing.
• 33:14
  Jen: Like we don't actively do that.
• 33:16
  Jen: But yes, that's the number of times, Jen, that I hear, particularly on podcasts and that sort of thing, like where the guest will say, you know, I'm a busy mom.
• 33:31
  Jen: So blah, blah, blah.
• 33:33
  Jen: Or as a busy mom, all the time people like, it's like they they have this identity.
• 33:41
  Jen: I'm a busy mom, and they're gonna stick by it.
• 33:43
  Jen: So then back to the addiction, you know what happens.
• 33:46
  Jen: If you carry that identity and you pride yourself in that, what society has praised, you you internalize that societal belief, then you are by hell and high water gonna stay busy to maintain that identity.
• 34:03
  Jen: So anything that chips away at it, like slowing down or not being busy, your nervous system won't feel safe because our nervous systems don't like giving, like our egos don't like giving up identities.
• 34:17
  Jen: And that can be at a cellular nervous system level.
• 34:21
  Jen: Oh, yeah.
• 34:22
  Jen: And and I heard somebody say this just yesterday, one of um one of our, one of my other clients, she's a corporate client, she said it was Friday, asked her what she was doing for the weekend.
• 34:38
  Jen: And she said, I'm not really doing much.
• 34:40
  Jen: And I'm really happy about that.
• 34:43
  Jen: Like it, she had to sort of, oh, she had to qualify.
• 34:46
  Jen: Like I'm I'm actually to make sure that I knew that she wasn't like that she liked it, like she wanted it that way.
• 34:54
  Jen: It wasn't because she Right, this was abnormal.
• 34:57
  Jen: Yeah.
• 34:57
  Jen: And not because she didn't have enough to do like enough of a busy social life or enough other stuff.
• 35:05
  Jen: It was like she was actually happy about it.
• 35:07
  Jen: And it was, I found that so interesting.
• 35:08
  Jen: I'm sure like I've noticed that that people do that kind of thing all the time.
• 35:13
  Jen: I probably did it too.
• 35:15
  Jen: And well, that's why I'm laughing.
• 35:16
  Jen: I'm not laughing at her.
• 35:18
  Jen: I'm laughing because I know that I've done it myself and I still do it at times.
• 35:23
  Jen: Like I talk about all this stuff, but I I still catch myself doing it too or saying it.
• 35:29
  Jen: So talk a talk a bit more about the nervous system.
• 35:32
  Jen: Like you, um, I think we were starting to talk about the coping mechanisms and how the nervous system will kick in when our brain feels unsafe.
• 35:44
  Jen: Yeah, so up to 90% of our behavior is automatic.
• 35:49
  Jen: Most people are kind of aware of that.
• 35:52
  Jen: But what we don't do is take that a step further and realize that if if our if our behavior is automatic and driven by our subconscious, how do you expect to change your behavior?
• 36:03
  Jen: Right.
• 36:03
  Jen: You'd have to get to the subconscious.
• 36:06
  Jen: Right.
• 36:06
  Jen: You have to change the subconscious fears and and beliefs.
• 36:10
  Jen: And those subconscious fears, beliefs, patterns we learn in our childhood.
• 36:17
  Jen: Mm-hmm.
• 36:18
  Jen: When they served us, they might have served us back then to keep us safe, but they're not serving us anymore.
• 36:23
  Jen: So, what's an example?
• 36:25
  Jen: So, fears can be in the present or back then.
• 36:28
  Jen: Like fear, it could be I'm gonna get stay busy.
• 36:32
  Jen: I am going to kick ass at work because I want to get a promoted and I don't want to lose my job, and I need my financial system uh situation to stay stable.
• 36:44
  Jen: We might not be consciously thinking that every day.
• 36:48
  Jen: That's a subconscious belief.
• 36:50
  Jen: I need to keep this job in order to maintain stable finances, which then also works back to, so I have food on the table and shelter.
• 37:00
  Jen: Yep.
• 37:00
  Jen: Safety.
• 37:01
  Jen: So it's your brain keeping you safe.
• 37:03
  Jen: Right.
• 37:04
  Jen: So that works in the present moment.
• 37:08
  Jen: It also works backward to a belief that you have chosen in your childhood.
• 37:13
  Jen: So let's say you got punished as a child for whatever, making mistakes.
• 37:24
  Jen: Some kids rebel, others, like us, tried our hardest to be good girls.
• 37:29
  Jen: I was gonna try to be perfect, to please mom and dad so that I wouldn't get punished again.
• 37:37
  Jen: We developed patterns perfectionism and people pleasing to avoid punishment keeping us safe and and get mom's love.
• 37:53
  Jen: Right.
• 37:54
  Jen: That kept us safe as children, kind of.
• 37:58
  Jen: It didn't always stop us from getting punished, but um because no matter how hard you try as a kid, you're not gonna you're gonna make mistakes and you're not gonna be perfect.
• 38:09
  Jen: Now people pleasing and perfectionism are subconscious patterns that run or were running my life.
• 38:18
  Jen: Yeah.
• 38:19
  Jen: They were pervasive across everything.
• 38:21
  Jen: I needed to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother.
• 38:24
  Jen: Couldn't make a mistake at work.
• 38:27
  Jen: These patterns continued to drive my behavior and they made me busy in so many ways.
• 38:32
  Jen: Right.
• 38:33
  Jen: First, because perfecting makes you busy, because then you're perfecting and you're checking three times and you're um rewriting and rewriting and rewriting.
• 38:42
  Jen: Yes, trying not to make mistakes.
• 38:44
  Jen: So that keeps you unness like overly busy.
• 38:47
  Jen: Yeah.
• 38:49
  Jen: Also, you stay busy trying to be perfect in every aspect of your life because you're trying to avoid the emotions that you might feel if you're not perfect.
• 38:57
  Jen: So when we weren't perfect, yeah, it's all connected.
• 39:00
  Jen: It's all connected.
• 39:01
  Jen: When we weren't perfect as children and we made mistakes or we did something wrong, we got punished, the punishment was shame.
• 39:11
  Jen: So still today, if I make a mistake, I still feel shame.
• 39:16
  Jen: Yeah.
• 39:17
  Jen: Or if I don't please somebody, like if I if I let somebody down, or if I disappoint somebody, it's not actually about them.
• 39:29
  Jen: I feel shame from that.
• 39:32
  Jen: Like I'm a bad person.
• 39:34
  Jen: So all of these three things make us overly busy.
• 39:40
  Jen: And unless these three things, this the societal conditioning, the the busyness as an addiction, and the childhood patterns and beliefs like that we learned, our subconscious that we learned from our parents and caregivers, our coping mechanisms, they all work together.
• 40:00
  Jen: And they can make you overly busy.
• 40:02
  Jen: And when you hit midlife, you can't sustain that kind of busyness anymore, right?
• 40:08
  Jen: No, we can't.
• 40:09
  Jen: Because your body's going through all these other changes.
• 40:11
  Jen: Like it's impossible.
• 40:12
  Jen: And suddenly that's when women come to us and they go, I can't sustain this anymore.
• 40:17
  Jen: I need to get help.
• 40:18
  Jen: Well, and and this is the link between, you know, everything that we're talking about, the symptoms that you feel, the physical symptoms that you feel link back to the adrenal glands being overworked because they're overstressed, because you're over busy.
• 40:39
  Jen: And so we can't just take the supplements or the medication or the HRT or whatever.
• 40:47
  Jen: Like working only with the physical is only one aspect.
• 40:51
  Jen: If you don't dial it back to what's causing the adrenal burnout in the first place, the busyness and the subconscious beliefs and societal judgment that are causing that busyness, then the whole, like you got to start with that foundation, right?
• 41:09
  Jen: That's totally right, Cher.
• 41:10
  Jen: You need all the pieces of the puzzle to really heal.
• 41:13
  Jen: What action could our listeners do to start rewiring their brain now?
• 41:18
  Jen: Those subconscious beliefs.
• 41:20
  Jen: This is the very first step that I take my clients through.
• 41:24
  Jen: And that is getting out a journal and writing down what you believe about busyness.
• 41:31
  Jen: It's a good one.
• 41:32
  Jen: Noticing.
• 41:33
  Jen: You start just creating a list.
• 41:34
  Jen: What did my parents teach me?
• 41:36
  Jen: What did they tell me?
• 41:38
  Jen: Was it like money doesn't grow on trees?
• 41:40
  Jen: Come on, you gotta hustle.
• 41:42
  Jen: Don't make mistakes.
• 41:43
  Jen: If you got shamed for not getting perfect grades, what did they say?
• 41:48
  Jen: What did they say about rest?
• 41:50
  Jen: Was it lazy?
• 41:51
  Jen: Did they value sleep and rest and play?
• 41:55
  Jen: So write down that list because you may uncover some things that you believe that you didn't even realize you believed.
• 42:03
  Jen: And that's the first step is just becoming aware.
• 42:07
  Jen: Yep.
• 42:08
  Jen: I think that is such an important step, is the awareness is actually like that's breaking open Pandora's box.
• 42:16
  Jen: And everything will start to shift.
• 42:18
  Jen: It starts to shift immediately once you brought it, bring it to the surface.
• 42:22
  Jen: And then the problem is that you can't look back.
• 42:24
  Jen: Yeah.
• 42:25
  Jen: Like that now you've opened up Pandora's box.
• 42:28
  Jen: I'm gonna put in a plug here.
• 42:29
  Jen: If you do find that this opens up Pandora's box for you and you need some help, we have a program.
• 42:36
  Jen: We call it the Midlife Red Tent.
• 42:38
  Jen: And you can come join us and we will help you with all the three pieces of the puzzle in helping you heal from the burnout and the symptoms using the three pieces of the puzzle, which is body, mind, and spirit.
• 42:51
  Jen: Yeah.
• 42:51
  Jen: Thank you.
• 42:52
  Jen: We'll drop that.
• 42:53
  Jen: We'll drop a link to join that waitlist into the show notes.
• 42:57
  Jen: And also to that book that you referenced, Screw the Meditation.
• 43:01
  Jen: Screw Meditation.
• 43:02
  Jen: I'll put that in the show notes too.
• 43:03
  Jen: Shout out to Sue.
• 43:05
  Jen: It was, it's a great book.
• 43:06
  Jen: Anything?
• 43:07
  Jen: Any last thoughts, Jen, on this before we close off?
• 43:12
  Jen: No, I I think I would just encourage our listeners to um start writing that list and keep on listening because we're gonna talk more about what these patterns are in the next couple of episodes.
• 43:28
  Jen: Yes.
• 43:29
  Jen: There's I I've identified six of them.
• 43:33
  Jen: And we'll be talking about like what's underneath them, what are the root causes, so that you can start to release them even more and actually get time back.
• 43:42
  Jen: Yeah.
• 43:42
  Jen: I can't wait for those.
• 43:45
  Jen: Okay.
• 43:45
  Jen: Well, thanks, Jen, for all of your expertise on this.
• 43:49
  Jen: And to our listeners, if you like this episode, share it with a friend who needs it.
• 43:55
  Jen: Great.
• 43:55
  Jen: Review.
• 43:56
  Jen: That's how other women find it.
• 43:58
  Jen: So we would be forever grateful if you did that.
• 44:00
  Jen: And we'll see you next week.