Latest / Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby / Mental Load: When You Love Your Partner but Resent the Hell Out of Them | Love | E550
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- 0:56Speaker 2: Women are have more power and more economic power than
- 0:59Speaker 2: more education. Men are interested in being primary cares, primary shares,
- 1:07Speaker 2: and are doing more work and yet everyone still feels
- 1:15Speaker 2: because awesome.
- 1:32Speaker 1: If you ever felt resentful, angry, overwhelmed, or just drained
- 1:39Speaker 1: because it feels like.
- 1:40Speaker 2: You are doing more than your fair.
- 1:43Speaker 1: Share in your relationship and running life compared to your partner,
- 1:48Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're tuning in today because we are going.
- 1:52Speaker 2: To talk about this. If you are constantly doing a
- 2:04Speaker 2: million things at once. While you're doing is fragmenting your
- 2:08Speaker 2: energy and pushing yourself towards burnout right, And so a
- 2:12Speaker 2: lot of times I would hear this as almost a
- 2:13Speaker 2: badge of honor, like I'm really good at doing all
- 2:15Speaker 2: this simultaneously, but I feel so burnt out. I'm exhausted.
- 2:20Speaker 1: And by the end of this conversation, I hope you
- 2:23Speaker 1: have some new insight into what's going on and some
- 2:26Speaker 1: actionable strategies that you can take back into your relationship
- 2:31Speaker 1: to create a more balanced and dare I say, equitable
- 2:35Speaker 1: partnership that feels better for both of you.
- 2:38Speaker 2: There are moments where life is hard, but coming together
- 2:40Speaker 2: and caring and understanding and deepening and sharing the load
- 2:44Speaker 2: is actually pretty critical, and that took about twenty years
- 2:47Speaker 2: to get the right balance on.
- 2:49Speaker 1: If this is your first time listening, welcome. This is love,
- 2:52Speaker 1: happiness and success, and I'm your host, doctor Lisa Marie Vavi.
- 2:56Speaker 2: My background.
- 2:56Speaker 1: I'm a psychologist, a marriage or family therapist, a word
- 3:00Speaker 1: certified coach, and this subject I have to tell you
- 3:03Speaker 1: is near and dear to my heart. I have experienced
- 3:05Speaker 1: this in my own marriage and many couples that I
- 3:09Speaker 1: work with do as well. And today we have a
- 3:12Speaker 1: very special treat I have a guest, Doctor Leah Rappanner.
- 3:24Speaker 1: Doctor Rapanner is a professor of sociology at the University
- 3:28Speaker 1: of Melbourne and she has a lot of experience researching
- 3:34Speaker 1: inequities and relationships and.
- 3:36Speaker 2: Why they exist.
- 3:37Speaker 1: It has a lot of thoughts about how to restore
- 3:40Speaker 1: order and balance.
- 3:41Speaker 2: So doctor Rapanner, welcome, thank you for having me.
- 3:46Speaker 1: So let's just dig into this. I was so excited
- 3:50Speaker 1: to learn about you and your work because frequently, as
- 3:53Speaker 1: a marriage counselor like this is a primary complaint, people
- 3:56Speaker 1: come in and they are honestly angry, They are exhausted,
- 4:01Speaker 1: they are resentful, and when we talk about it, it's
- 4:04Speaker 1: because they feel like they are shouldering the burden of
- 4:07Speaker 1: all of this stuff and their partner isn't and it
- 4:10Speaker 1: feels unfair and they have tried talking about it and
- 4:13Speaker 1: nothing changes. And I know that there can be many
- 4:17Speaker 1: different reasons for this, but first of all, you know,
- 4:20Speaker 1: take us into your research and some of the things
- 4:22Speaker 1: that you've you've found.
- 4:25Speaker 2: Okay, So I am a sociologist, which means I am
- 4:28Speaker 2: studying the ways in which we individually move through the world,
- 4:32Speaker 2: and how we behave in ways that maybe we don't
- 4:35Speaker 2: quite anticipate, we don't quite know, And what do the
- 4:37Speaker 2: patterns look like across groups. And so I've spent twenty
- 4:41Speaker 2: years looking at, you know, the division of household labor
- 4:43Speaker 2: women in AI and one of the things that I
- 4:45Speaker 2: consistently found was like, hey, women are doing more of
- 4:49Speaker 2: the housework in the childcare on average. Men have stepped
- 4:52Speaker 2: into more care as well. So we have a paper
- 4:54Speaker 2: showing that actually men are doing more now than ever before. Generationally,
- 5:00Speaker 2: they're taking on more of the primary care, they're taking
- 5:01Speaker 2: on more of the housework, and women are also doing
- 5:05Speaker 2: the same amount as previous generations. And so the question
- 5:09Speaker 2: for me was like I keep looking at this thing
- 5:12Speaker 2: where I see that women have more power, they have
- 5:14Speaker 2: more economic power, they have more education, men are interested
- 5:17Speaker 2: in being primary cares, primary shares, and they're doing more work,
- 5:21Speaker 2: and yet everyone still feels exhausted, Everyone still feels burnt out,
- 5:26Speaker 2: everyone still feels like there's not enough time energy in
- 5:28Speaker 2: the day. And what are we missing? What is the
- 5:31Speaker 2: piece of this puzzle that we haven't actually articulated. And
- 5:34Speaker 2: what I kept bumping up against her. I kept finding
- 5:36Speaker 2: was that we don't have a good measure of the
- 5:39Speaker 2: mental load. We haven't brought that conversation into the conversation,
- 5:44Speaker 2: and part of that is because we don't have really
- 5:46Speaker 2: good language for it. We're talking about these things in
- 5:48Speaker 2: all these different ways. But my goal with this book,
- 5:51Speaker 2: my goal with this piece of research is kind of saying, hey,
- 5:55Speaker 2: let me help you articulate perhaps what you're feeling, perhaps
- 5:59Speaker 2: what you're caring, so you can step into conversations in
- 6:03Speaker 2: a more honest, direct and open way. Amazing.
- 6:07Speaker 1: Well, I love this, and I think we should. I'd
- 6:11Speaker 1: love to dig in more deeply to this idea of
- 6:13Speaker 1: the mental load, the energetic burden that.
- 6:17Speaker 2: Just like remembering all the crap could take on us.
- 6:20Speaker 1: And and you, guys, here here is the book we're referencing.
- 6:23Speaker 1: The book is called Drained, Reduce your mental load to
- 6:26Speaker 1: do less and be more, Doctor Panter. I understand that
- 6:29Speaker 1: your research has revealed gender and equities and sort of
- 6:34Speaker 1: socialization and how there can be imbalance around gender lines
- 6:38Speaker 1: in opposite sex relationships. And I'm just going to be
- 6:43Speaker 1: also the voice of a different perspective in this conversation
- 6:47Speaker 1: because what I have seen in my own family and
- 6:52Speaker 1: many people around me, and also in many couples, is
- 6:55Speaker 1: that having a relationship that feels out of balance is
- 6:59Speaker 1: really really common. That happens to so many couples, That
- 7:02Speaker 1: happens to say, sex couples, but in my experience it
- 7:06Speaker 1: is frequently male partners who are actually the ones who
- 7:09Speaker 1: are shouldering more of that mental load and doing all
- 7:11Speaker 1: kinds of things and feeling annoyed about it a lot
- 7:14Speaker 1: of the times. So I just wanted to share that
- 7:16Speaker 1: that this can look like a lot of different things
- 7:18Speaker 1: and a lot of different families.
- 7:19Speaker 2: So with that in mind, so help us unpack this idea.
- 7:23Speaker 1: So mental load, I think I've probably experienced that, But
- 7:28Speaker 1: what do you define it as?
- 7:31Speaker 2: Okay, thank you for leting me the researcher again, I'm
- 7:36Speaker 2: app sure this. So with my colleagues s Brinda Churchill
- 7:39Speaker 2: and Liz Dean at the University Coved, we wrote an
- 7:41Speaker 2: article in twenty twenty one where we actually gave a
- 7:43Speaker 2: clear definition in the mental load, and one of the
- 7:45Speaker 2: things we were saying is a is emotional thinking work
- 7:49Speaker 2: necessary to keep your work, life and family running. So
- 7:52Speaker 2: we often think about the mental load as being like
- 7:54Speaker 2: akin to list making or kind of the work that
- 7:56Speaker 2: mothers do. But it's not. Everyone carries a mental love.
- 8:00Speaker 2: Everyone does emotional thinking work to keep your work, life
- 8:03Speaker 2: and family running. You are all carrying a mental load, right.
- 8:07Speaker 2: The question is what does the composition look like? But
- 8:09Speaker 2: let me give you an example. So if you're thinking
- 8:11Speaker 2: about something like is the milk running low for breakfast tomorrow?
- 8:16Speaker 2: If it was just straight cognitive labor, we're just doing
- 8:19Speaker 2: this thinking work and then list making, we would go, Okay,
- 8:21Speaker 2: the milk is running low, let's put it on the list,
- 8:23Speaker 2: let's buy it from the store. Problem solved, and everything
- 8:26Speaker 2: is good. Sometimes our mental lows do work this way,
- 8:30Speaker 2: but often what happens as we go the milk is
- 8:33Speaker 2: running low? Oh, that means that my kid won't have
- 8:35Speaker 2: enough breakfast for tomorrow. If they don't start the day
- 8:37Speaker 2: off right. Then what does that mean for their future? Actually,
- 8:39Speaker 2: what happens when they show up at school? They won't
- 8:40Speaker 2: be able to concentrate. Are they actually concentrating at school?
- 8:43Speaker 2: What does it mean if actually AI is coming out?
- 8:45Speaker 2: Are is my kid going to even have a future?
- 8:49Speaker 2: But wait, am I going to have a future? And
- 8:50Speaker 2: then hold it out, I know, because it goes like this, right,
- 8:56Speaker 2: and then what about my health?
- 8:57Speaker 1: Wait?
- 8:57Speaker 2: Have I got enough calcium? Am I gonna have osteoporos?
- 9:00Speaker 2: If what I'm saying is triggering to you, I'm sorry, yay,
- 9:04Speaker 2: I like no, I'm tens. Yes. Sometimes our mental loads
- 9:09Speaker 2: kick off in this way where they start to go
- 9:11Speaker 2: from A to B to C to D to E
- 9:13Speaker 2: to F. Because there's actually, as my book defines, as
- 9:16Speaker 2: research defines, there's eight different types of mental look you
- 9:20Speaker 2: might be moving across. My goal is, of course, not
- 9:24Speaker 2: for you to do that ping ponging, but it's for
- 9:26Speaker 2: you to get the language, the clarity, the understanding of
- 9:30Speaker 2: why you're going A, B, C, D and E, so
- 9:34Speaker 2: that you can take some control back. You can start
- 9:37Speaker 2: to go that's not important that socialization, that you can
- 9:40Speaker 2: start to change some of that away. And so that
- 9:43Speaker 2: is the purpose of kind of my big vision for
- 9:47Speaker 2: the work. But you know, the book does one piece
- 9:49Speaker 2: of that. But I have lightenlab dot com where you
- 9:51Speaker 2: can go and take a free assessment and see, like
- 9:53Speaker 2: I'm trying to help people understand what this might look like,
- 9:57Speaker 2: so that y'are not just they're passive to the thoughts
- 10:00Speaker 2: and you can start to say, hey, wait a minute,
- 10:03Speaker 2: that's the meta mental load popping back up for me.
- 10:05Speaker 2: Do I need to think about this right now or not?
- 10:08Speaker 2: Can I say yeah another thing? Oh yeah, God, I'll
- 10:11Speaker 2: say so many things to you today, but I can't wait.
- 10:13Speaker 2: The only other aspect that came from that research that
- 10:16Speaker 2: I just want to say is what we also said. Okay,
- 10:18Speaker 2: so it's the emotional thinking work you do to keep
- 10:20Speaker 2: your work, life and family running. And it has three characteristics.
- 10:23Speaker 2: It's invisible. You do it internally, so you could be
- 10:26Speaker 2: doing it right now, people won't even be able to
- 10:28Speaker 2: see it. It's boundary list. And what that means is
- 10:32Speaker 2: you can take your mental load with you everywhere you go. Yes, right.
- 10:36Speaker 2: You probably don't take your dishes like you don't go like, oh,
- 10:39Speaker 2: I have dirty dishes at home, Let me just bring
- 10:40Speaker 2: them to the work. The work will work dishwasher and
- 10:43Speaker 2: put them in. But you're going to bring your mental
- 10:46Speaker 2: load with you to work, onto your walk, everywhere, into
- 10:50Speaker 2: the bath, even if you're awakened when you're sleeping. And
- 10:53Speaker 2: the third thing about it is it's enduring. It's tied
- 10:56Speaker 2: to the people we love the most, including ourselves. And
- 10:59Speaker 2: so when does that thinking work? When does that emotional
- 11:01Speaker 2: thinking work? Stop? It doesn't, right, because it's it's what
- 11:06Speaker 2: tathers us to each other. What's make is as human
- 11:09Speaker 2: and hole and this is that string that connects us
- 11:13Speaker 2: to each other.
- 11:14Speaker 1: Right well, and so and this is oh my gosh,
- 11:17Speaker 1: I have like questions sprouting up like mushrooms after the rain,
- 11:22Speaker 1: and now I have to figure out which one to
- 11:23Speaker 1: ask you first?
- 11:25Speaker 2: Okay, question number one? And this I thought was also interesting.
- 11:29Speaker 1: And this is why I think this is going to
- 11:30Speaker 1: be a really cool conversation because you know, you are
- 11:33Speaker 1: a researcher, academic, and a professor I mean like sociology.
- 11:37Speaker 1: I think my perspective is as a practitioner, you know,
- 11:41Speaker 1: clinical psychologist, have to ask and I don't know if
- 11:44Speaker 1: your research has ever gone in this direction, but I'm
- 11:47Speaker 1: curious part of what you described, like the chain of
- 11:51Speaker 1: events and the oh my god, we're out of milk,
- 11:53Speaker 1: therefore doom kind of you know, like that kind of thing.
- 11:57Speaker 1: I am curious to know if you have ever explored
- 12:00Speaker 1: personality variables and differences in that. But also it has
- 12:05Speaker 1: a whiff of anxiety to it, like it's it feels
- 12:09Speaker 1: like an anxious process that kind of goes out into
- 12:11Speaker 1: the future and all these unsolvable problems.
- 12:14Speaker 2: Like did you did you ever go into that with
- 12:17Speaker 2: your research or not. I love this question because we
- 12:20Speaker 2: have been trying to figure out that exact thing, right,
- 12:23Speaker 2: Like a mental load is a mental load the trigger.
- 12:26Speaker 2: I'm going to make the argument to you that I
- 12:27Speaker 2: think the mental load is the trigger to anxiety. It
- 12:31Speaker 2: doesn't always see that like a chicken and the egg
- 12:33Speaker 2: kind of thing, for sure. Yeah, it's like the antecedent piece.
- 12:36Speaker 2: It's like the piece where your brain starts to go,
- 12:40Speaker 2: ping ping, ping, and then your body reacts, right, you
- 12:42Speaker 2: start to go And it's not that you're doing this
- 12:44Speaker 2: because you're you know, over zealous or anxious, or it's
- 12:49Speaker 2: because sometimes well two things I'll say sometimes like the
- 12:52Speaker 2: consequences are significant, Like when I kept hearing across the interviews,
- 12:55Speaker 2: was like especially it's like I can't it's tied to
- 12:58Speaker 2: the people we love, So I can't let my kid down,
- 13:01Speaker 2: or I can't let my aging parent down, Like I
- 13:04Speaker 2: this is important work, right, and so sometimes it's hard
- 13:08Speaker 2: to not let it come and not let the anxiety go.
- 13:12Speaker 2: But it's also important work to figure out when you're socialized,
- 13:16Speaker 2: and this is where the sociologist and me comes in.
- 13:18Speaker 2: When you're socialized into caring about things that like if
- 13:21Speaker 2: you're totally honest with yourself, like you don't care about
- 13:24Speaker 2: like you you really and you're deep in your core
- 13:26Speaker 2: and your values, it's not important to you. And so
- 13:28Speaker 2: my goal is how do you kind of put up
- 13:31Speaker 2: a shield a little bit to that moment in terms
- 13:34Speaker 2: of the personality types, Like, this is not the work
- 13:36Speaker 2: we do, so we have not, but I am desperate
- 13:39Speaker 2: to hear what you think about this, Like how how
- 13:41Speaker 2: does this resonate for you when I say that? Like
- 13:43Speaker 2: what does it? What does it make you think? I
- 13:45Speaker 2: guess I would be curious to hear.
- 13:47Speaker 1: I think that there are a number of different variables,
- 13:53Speaker 1: but there there's a certain type of personality specific wiring
- 13:58Speaker 1: that lends itself to worrying and if this then that
- 14:02Speaker 1: and kind of going out into the future versus others
- 14:05Speaker 1: that I have, Like I mean that the technical term
- 14:09Speaker 1: for it is neuroticism, honestly, and just you know that.
- 14:12Speaker 1: But it's also associated with conscientiousness, right, like wanting to
- 14:16Speaker 1: make sure that things are okay, but okay, so then
- 14:18Speaker 1: another question for you. It seems like this is tied
- 14:24Speaker 1: to what people care about, and I heard part of
- 14:29Speaker 1: your definition as being that this primarily manifests in a
- 14:34Speaker 1: personal life type situation, the mental load. I am curious though,
- 14:38Speaker 1: so speaking for myself, I am a stone cold entrepreneur.
- 14:43Speaker 2: It's all I've ever done. I've always run my own
- 14:45Speaker 2: businesses for better or for worse, usually worse. It's fine.
- 14:48Speaker 1: But like the experience that you're describing has always come
- 14:52Speaker 1: up for me as a business owner. There's like, you know,
- 14:57Speaker 1: managing like twenty plates spinning in the air, Like if
- 15:00Speaker 1: I'm not watching something, it's going to fall over. So
- 15:02Speaker 1: like I can absolutely relate to that experience. Have you
- 15:09Speaker 1: like different populations of people with that mental load or
- 15:12Speaker 1: just the exhaustion that comes from like why is nobody
- 15:16Speaker 1: else caring about this thing that I'm caring about right now?
- 15:19Speaker 2: Yes? Okay, Well, I I'm going to answer like in
- 15:21Speaker 2: three different ways and then pick the one.
- 15:24Speaker 1: I asked you, like eighteen questions in a row, and
- 15:27Speaker 1: now we will have a buffet of answers.
- 15:29Speaker 2: I love this. I'm going to give you eighteen answers
- 15:31Speaker 2: in a row great, and then y'all pick the ones
- 15:34Speaker 2: you're like this get. One of the things I'm trying
- 15:36Speaker 2: to do through this work is to try to get
- 15:38Speaker 2: people this. So when you said, like, as you're saying
- 15:39Speaker 2: this to me, I'm thinking about like, as an entrepreneur,
- 15:41Speaker 2: I'm doing this in all these different areas of my life.
- 15:44Speaker 2: It's training. I want you. I want people to start
- 15:46Speaker 2: thinking about the mental load in this way right like
- 15:48Speaker 2: thinking about like, yes you are, and the book is,
- 15:51Speaker 2: you know, mostly focused on family life. But what my
- 15:55Speaker 2: work currently is doing is is how do we understand
- 15:58Speaker 2: the mental load to life? You work with these eight
- 16:01Speaker 2: different categories. So I write like, you will be doing
- 16:04Speaker 2: life organization for your businesses. You will be doing emotional
- 16:07Speaker 2: support at work when you're thinking about your co coworkers.
- 16:09Speaker 2: You will be doing dream building when you're trying to
- 16:12Speaker 2: build something new and interesting and dynamic. All of these
- 16:14Speaker 2: are mental load pieces. And one of the things I
- 16:16Speaker 2: really want you to get out of the book is like, hey,
- 16:19Speaker 2: you have finite mental load energy like you you are
- 16:23Speaker 2: not unlimited, and you might be spending it in a
- 16:26Speaker 2: way that's unlimited. But if you start to really get strategic,
- 16:29Speaker 2: which I am sure you have had to do a
- 16:31Speaker 2: million times if you were running your own businesses tell me, well,
- 16:35Speaker 2: I'm sure you have to get strategic and go Okay,
- 16:37Speaker 2: I can't care about that. I can't worry about that
- 16:40Speaker 2: and get clear on priority true or false.
- 16:44Speaker 1: You know what. I am aware of the need, but
- 16:48Speaker 1: it's really hard to do because it all seems important oftentimes.
- 16:53Speaker 1: And so I think that that's something that I'm still
- 16:55Speaker 1: sorting through. But you're absolutely right. You cannot care about
- 16:59Speaker 1: every thing. You have got to be willing to let
- 17:01Speaker 1: some stuff go.
- 17:02Speaker 2: Or you will incinerate you. Yeah, seriously, Like, yeah, I
- 17:06Speaker 2: get it.
- 17:07Speaker 1: And what you're saying is that perhaps that's one piece
- 17:11Speaker 1: of it, is recognizing your own personal limits and when
- 17:15Speaker 1: you're starting to get maxed out.
- 17:19Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely so part of my solution is this mental
- 17:23Speaker 2: load audit right, and again I'm saying to buy the book,
- 17:27Speaker 2: of course, but also go to the website. A lot
- 17:29Speaker 2: of the pieces are there you just want to do
- 17:30Speaker 2: if you want to take it to the guy right,
- 17:32Speaker 2: go to the website. I like love and I have
- 17:33Speaker 2: this assessment. So of these questions that are like, you know,
- 17:36Speaker 2: you know, are you burning through your energy? Faster than
- 17:38Speaker 2: you can replenish. Do you find it difficult to concentrate
- 17:40Speaker 2: on life's moments? Do you find that like actually, when
- 17:42Speaker 2: you're sitting there thinking about the next thing, do you
- 17:44Speaker 2: find it difficult to respond to opportunities? These These are
- 17:47Speaker 2: clear indications of what we're calling mental out. And what
- 17:51Speaker 2: I want you to be able to do is go like, oh,
- 17:53Speaker 2: I'm getting close, right, I'm getting close to where I'm
- 17:55Speaker 2: eating that burnout? What what can I either take off
- 17:59Speaker 2: my plate? Would you? Or get rid of? Some of
- 18:02Speaker 2: you can't. Some of you we heard this across the interviews.
- 18:05Speaker 2: Some of you are managing complex, complicated care dynamics, difficult
- 18:11Speaker 2: things going on in your life. And the idea of
- 18:13Speaker 2: me saying to you, oh, just drop some of that
- 18:15Speaker 2: is you know, jerk out right.
- 18:18Speaker 1: People tell me like you shouldn't work as much like
- 18:20Speaker 1: not having this acrasation with you, right, thank you, that's right.
- 18:24Speaker 2: I don't know I said that out loud, but I
- 18:26Speaker 2: thought it. I'll say it for you. Just have them
- 18:28Speaker 2: call me back off. And so in those moments, what
- 18:31Speaker 2: I want you to have is two pieces. Like when
- 18:33Speaker 2: you're talking about work, I want you to have the
- 18:35Speaker 2: two pieces tied together. One is like, what are you
- 18:37Speaker 2: working towards and what are you working for? And that
- 18:40Speaker 2: will help to align your energy in a way that
- 18:42Speaker 2: is strategic, that isn't just everywhere. And if you cannot draw,
- 18:47Speaker 2: what is happening during the moments of replenishing, what is
- 18:49Speaker 2: happening during the moments of rest. Because what I heard
- 18:52Speaker 2: consistently was people, in particular women who felt an incredible
- 18:55Speaker 2: amount of guilt and anxiety about taking resources for themselves,
- 19:00Speaker 2: taking time, taking things, laying down on the couch like
- 19:03Speaker 2: and I'm not the only one who's shown this. My friend,
- 19:05Speaker 2: a good friend, Katie Collins a yeah, has written a
- 19:08Speaker 2: book all about guilt being a very American experience. Not
- 19:12Speaker 2: all women experience guilt. But in those moments, you cannot
- 19:15Speaker 2: be sitting there watching Bridgeton or hanging out or whatever
- 19:17Speaker 2: you're doing with a mental load that is ruminating or guilt.
- 19:21Speaker 2: You need that recovery time. So I want to say
- 19:24Speaker 2: you deserve it, you have permission to take it. It's
- 19:27Speaker 2: it's the right. If you cannot drop I am seeing you,
- 19:31Speaker 2: I'm That is so incredibly hard, and then the recovery
- 19:35Speaker 2: time becomes even more important. Whatever that looks like for
- 19:38Speaker 2: you permission to take it, permission to take the resources,
- 19:41Speaker 2: and it's like almost like a non negotiable rate, like
- 19:44Speaker 2: you need that. Yeah, you absolutely do.
- 19:48Speaker 1: Okay, well, and I cannot wait to dig in with
- 19:52Speaker 1: you around what it looks like to rebuild and replenish
- 19:57Speaker 1: and kind of get back into balance and be okay again.
- 20:01Speaker 1: But first, can you share a little bit more about
- 20:04Speaker 1: what your research uncovered what starts to happen to individuals
- 20:09Speaker 1: and also by extension with their relationships, their family dynamics,
- 20:14Speaker 1: when they really are maxed out, it is out of balance.
- 20:19Speaker 1: They are, you know, trying to hold up the sun,
- 20:22Speaker 1: and it is objectively too much.
- 20:25Speaker 2: What happens, It's interesting. I'd be curiously from your experience too,
- 20:29Speaker 2: so what you see on the practice side, because it's
- 20:33Speaker 2: like a slippery slope, right. One of the things I
- 20:35Speaker 2: ask you to do in the book is to use
- 20:36Speaker 2: super sociologies or superpower. And one of the things I
- 20:39Speaker 2: kept hearing across the interviews when when people would describe,
- 20:42Speaker 2: in particular, when we would describe like I am so overwhelmed,
- 20:45Speaker 2: they would also simultaneously say to me things, but I'm
- 20:47Speaker 2: a really good multitasker, like, I am so good at multitasking.
- 20:51Speaker 2: The problem is is that sometimes no one can multitask
- 20:55Speaker 2: you actually can, our brains can't. No one's better at it.
- 20:58Speaker 2: But if you are constantly doing a million at once
- 21:01Speaker 2: while you're doing is fragmenting your energy and pushing yourself
- 21:04Speaker 2: towards burnout, right, And so a lot of times I
- 21:07Speaker 2: would hear this as almost a badge of honor, like
- 21:09Speaker 2: I'm really good at doing all this simultaneously, but I
- 21:12Speaker 2: feel so burnt out. I'm exhausted you right, Like like
- 21:16Speaker 2: those kind of like there's a disconnect, a cognitive disconnect
- 21:20Speaker 2: between the two things. And what that means is is
- 21:23Speaker 2: that you are stepping into your family, You're stepping into
- 21:25Speaker 2: your relationships depleted, depleted, exhausted, and potentially angry and frustrated.
- 21:31Speaker 2: Like I'm curious when you get the couples at what
- 21:34Speaker 2: point they are in the conversation or the like, what
- 21:37Speaker 2: are they in crisis for?
- 21:38Speaker 1: You know?
- 21:38Speaker 2: So, no, that's a great question.
- 21:40Speaker 1: And so what I have seen, and certainly this is
- 21:42Speaker 1: in the context of a relationship coaching, you know, couple's work,
- 21:46Speaker 1: is that it has turned into bad feelings between each
- 21:51Speaker 1: other where one person and you know this is very true,
- 21:56Speaker 1: like in some family dynamics for a variety of reasons,
- 21:59Speaker 1: one person is sharing, shouldering more of the running of
- 22:03Speaker 1: the household, kids, parenting, clean and cooking all the jazz
- 22:07Speaker 1: in a way that almost feels like non consensual right,
- 22:12Speaker 1: and they want to feel like there's more teamwork in
- 22:16Speaker 1: the relationship, that they are pulling together in the same direction,
- 22:20Speaker 1: like on the same page. And when that doesn't happen
- 22:24Speaker 1: in alignment with what they expect or believe should be happening,
- 22:28Speaker 1: it turns into anger and resentment. Then that breeds conflict
- 22:33Speaker 1: where the other person can feel also like they're being criticized,
- 22:38Speaker 1: not appreciated, not seen or recognized for what they are contributing,
- 22:42Speaker 1: and it turns into a downward spiral that can feel
- 22:45Speaker 1: really really lucky, because at the core is if you
- 22:50Speaker 1: really loved me.
- 22:52Speaker 2: And cared about me, why is this happening? Why can
- 22:56Speaker 2: we not be doing this together? Why won't you x
- 22:59Speaker 2: y Z. That's what happens. I have one one of
- 23:04Speaker 2: the last chapters of the book, I have a couple
- 23:06Speaker 2: that is went through the audit, did the whole thing
- 23:08Speaker 2: and and really felt like they were you know, she
- 23:12Speaker 2: says to them, I'm like, I realized this isn't about
- 23:13Speaker 2: the mental not it's about my marriage.
- 23:15Speaker 1: Right.
- 23:15Speaker 2: And one of the things that was really helpful for
- 23:17Speaker 2: them or was hard, was like, sometimes is that feel
- 23:20Speaker 2: like when you say, Okay, you don't care about me?
- 23:22Speaker 2: Why are you not doing this if you don't hear
- 23:24Speaker 2: about me? Is it sometimes like what I would hear
- 23:27Speaker 2: across for the heterosexual couples, right, is that like they
- 23:30Speaker 2: almost couldn't understand each other's worlds in ways, right, Like
- 23:33Speaker 2: this feels heavy for me because of this reason, because
- 23:36Speaker 2: I know I'm going to get a social penalty. I
- 23:38Speaker 2: know if I show up my kid is dishoveled, they're
- 23:40Speaker 2: gonna blame me at school because I'm a woman, even
- 23:42Speaker 2: if we're both busy and we're both working, and there's
- 23:44Speaker 2: gonna be a penalty. And sometimes the men would say
- 23:46Speaker 2: back to them like, don't worry about this, Like you're
- 23:49Speaker 2: you're worrying about the wrong things. No one cares. We
- 23:53Speaker 2: have research showing that people do care and they are
- 23:55Speaker 2: expecting a judgment for that. But simultaneously the women would
- 23:58Speaker 2: be men would be saying like, look, you want me
- 24:00Speaker 2: more here, you want me more present, but like my
- 24:02Speaker 2: boss is going to punish me, right, Like if I
- 24:03Speaker 2: do this, like there's gonna be a consequence at work
- 24:05Speaker 2: for me. And we have research showing that that's true too.
- 24:08Speaker 2: And this is where gender norms are bad for everybody, right,
- 24:10Speaker 2: like they trap us all in these systems that you
- 24:13Speaker 2: might not actually want. One of the interesting things was
- 24:16Speaker 2: because we did interviews and then we brought people in
- 24:18Speaker 2: and said, here's what we're hearing you say, like, here's
- 24:21Speaker 2: across the interviews what we're getting and pulling through. And
- 24:24Speaker 2: that was identifying the eight different types. And often what
- 24:26Speaker 2: would happen is the men would say like I didn't
- 24:29Speaker 2: even know that was happening for me, Like they didn't know, right.
- 24:34Speaker 2: And this, of course, as you've noted, it can go
- 24:36Speaker 2: in both directions, right, It doesn't have to be people
- 24:38Speaker 2: can be unaware. But how can you have known if
- 24:41Speaker 2: you didn't have the language, right, Like, how could you
- 24:43Speaker 2: have known if someone just told you? Well, the mental
- 24:46Speaker 2: load is about making sure the permission slips are done,
- 24:48Speaker 2: and the mental load is making it as sure that
- 24:49Speaker 2: the milk is there. But if I say to you, no, no, no,
- 24:51Speaker 2: it's much bigger than that. It's emotional support for families.
- 24:54Speaker 2: It's making sure that relationships are strong. It's magic making
- 24:57Speaker 2: to make sure everything feels interesting. It's stream building to
- 25:00Speaker 2: mad out to the world this individual love you. And
- 25:02Speaker 2: you're all carrying these but you've never before, as a couple,
- 25:05Speaker 2: as a society, had the language to be able to say, WHOA,
- 25:09Speaker 2: I'm caring that? Do I want to? Is it valuable?
- 25:11Speaker 1: Is it not?
- 25:12Speaker 2: It's not. You're not to blame if you can't communicate
- 25:16Speaker 2: what we don't know, you know, and I hear that,
- 25:19Speaker 2: I hear that, Well no, and this this is so good.
- 25:22Speaker 1: Well let's unpack this and and then we'll probably take
- 25:26Speaker 1: a short break here. But what you're really saying is
- 25:29Speaker 1: that there can be differences in what people are caring
- 25:33Speaker 1: about or indexing or like things that are on someone's
- 25:37Speaker 1: radar that might not be there for their partner.
- 25:42Speaker 2: And I have to laugh.
- 25:43Speaker 1: And so just just to share, my dad was a
- 25:46Speaker 1: feminist and so I'm a very bad woman, a doctor,
- 25:50Speaker 1: a panner, so you know, I'm an outliner. So my
- 25:53Speaker 1: my sister is too. But like, you know, it's so
- 25:56Speaker 1: funny with like when we have.
- 25:59Speaker 2: People over to our house. I'm like, why do we
- 26:02Speaker 2: have to clean?
- 26:02Speaker 1: There are friends, they're gonna love us anyway. My husband
- 26:05Speaker 1: is like, no, they cannot see our house like this.
- 26:07Speaker 1: And it's like running around like cleaning things and you know,
- 26:10Speaker 1: all the stuff, and and tends to be much more
- 26:13Speaker 1: kind of conscientious and prioritizing some of the things that
- 26:17Speaker 1: you have talked about. But it's like there are there
- 26:21Speaker 1: are differences in terms of like the things that we
- 26:24Speaker 1: are viewing as being important in that moment. And I
- 26:27Speaker 1: think that the real core here is that if any
- 26:31Speaker 1: of us cannot not just see and understand, but actually
- 26:38Speaker 1: care about something just because it is important to our partner,
- 26:41Speaker 1: that can really create a relational rift, right, Like, if
- 26:46Speaker 1: it's important to you, it needs to be at least
- 26:48Speaker 1: a little bit important to me if we're going to
- 26:50Speaker 1: have a good relationship with each other.
- 26:52Speaker 2: So yeah, I agree with you on that. I love that.
- 26:55Speaker 2: I love that you have the revers de program. Oh
- 26:57Speaker 2: my god, I love this. I love this, and you're
- 26:59Speaker 2: part so much. Oh yeah in many different ways. But
- 27:04Speaker 2: I've been talking about this work with it people around
- 27:07Speaker 2: the world, which has been such a delight. So thank
- 27:08Speaker 2: you for having me and thank you to your listeners
- 27:10Speaker 2: and all this it's always makes it like it's such
- 27:12Speaker 2: a gift. It's a gift to hear how the idea
- 27:14Speaker 2: is because you spend all the time writing this thing
- 27:16Speaker 2: and you have ideas and then you know the house
- 27:17Speaker 2: and the land in the world. So thank you is like,
- 27:20Speaker 2: you know, hey, maybe we've put a lot of too
- 27:21Speaker 2: much pressure on this. Like single unit. One of the
- 27:23Speaker 2: things I ask you to do is get clear on
- 27:25Speaker 2: who where are you going? Where are you specifically going?
- 27:28Speaker 2: Where do you have goals your dreams? If you could
- 27:30Speaker 2: go anywhere, and it could be as small as like,
- 27:33Speaker 2: you know, women would tell me like I want to
- 27:35Speaker 2: learn to play the guitar, or it could be as
- 27:36Speaker 2: big as like I want to run for president. Great,
- 27:38Speaker 2: we need it all right. When you start to get
- 27:41Speaker 2: clear on where you want to go your dreams, then
- 27:44Speaker 2: you need to get clear on your team. Who do
- 27:45Speaker 2: you need to help you? And the value is to
- 27:47Speaker 2: online and sometimes the answer is it's not your partner,
- 27:51Speaker 2: it's not it's not your spouse, it's not your partner,
- 27:53Speaker 2: it's not your family. And so I think some of
- 27:56Speaker 2: that strategic work is going to the places where it
- 27:59Speaker 2: is the most valuable, where the expertise is the greatest
- 28:01Speaker 2: class networks, and so it could take a little bit
- 28:05Speaker 2: of the pressure too. I mean, I agree with you,
- 28:06Speaker 2: like we all have to care about the things that
- 28:09Speaker 2: our partner cares about even a little bit as a
- 28:11Speaker 2: respect and a valuation. Absolutely, but we can also figure
- 28:15Speaker 2: out but sometimes actually we shouldn't go to our partners,
- 28:17Speaker 2: We should go to our someone else. And that I
- 28:21Speaker 2: think is a valuable just like cognition or awareness.
- 28:24Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that that makes a lot of sense too,
- 28:28Speaker 1: to be able to own something that you care about
- 28:32Speaker 1: and not make it somebody else's problem necessarily, because I
- 28:35Speaker 1: also see that a lot in couple's work. You know
- 28:39Speaker 1: that if you have a certain desire for things to
- 28:44Speaker 1: be a certain way and your partner doesn't share that drive,
- 28:48Speaker 1: I guess to create it. There are other ways of
- 28:52Speaker 1: fulfilling that if it's really that important to you, as
- 28:56Speaker 1: opposed to trying to get your partner to see the
- 28:58Speaker 1: world differently, because that might not always be a reality
- 29:02Speaker 1: based thing, and that in itself might cause problems in
- 29:06Speaker 1: a relationship. I've seen that many times, actually people judging
- 29:10Speaker 1: their partner by their own yardstick. You know, like how
- 29:14Speaker 1: things should be. I've experienced some of that. Not not judging,
- 29:17Speaker 1: but like, well, you know what, hold on, let's actually
- 29:20Speaker 1: talk about this. Let's take a really fast commercial break.
- 29:24Speaker 1: And on the other side, what I would love to
- 29:27Speaker 1: do is explore more you know, how these imbalances can
- 29:32Speaker 1: look in relationships, like things you've seen, and I could
- 29:35Speaker 1: share some things and maybe talk about our own lives,
- 29:37Speaker 1: but also starting to talk about because you put a
- 29:40Speaker 1: lot of time into this, strategies for how to create
- 29:45Speaker 1: more balance that feel consensual.
- 29:48Speaker 2: Everybody's agreeing to it. It feels good for everyone, and
- 29:51Speaker 2: there's just more of that. Yes, we are in the
- 29:54Speaker 2: shared life together.
- 29:56Speaker 1: Is that okay?
- 29:57Speaker 2: Sounds great.
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- 31:26Speaker 1: I got so excited about an idea I had for
- 31:30Speaker 1: funny therapist T shirts that I could make them. But
- 31:33Speaker 1: then I had a crisis. I was like, oh wait,
- 31:36Speaker 1: how would that actually work? But then I thought, at
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- 32:15Speaker 1: That's shopify dot com slash lahs. So we're back with
- 32:26Speaker 1: my very special guest, doctor Leah Rapanner and talking about
- 32:31Speaker 1: her new book called Drained. Reduce your mental load to
- 32:36Speaker 1: do less and be more sounds like a dream come
- 32:39Speaker 1: true for everybody listening, like, yes, reduce the mental do less,
- 32:44Speaker 1: be more.
- 32:44Speaker 2: Love it.
- 32:44Speaker 1: But we were talking just before the break about how people,
- 32:49Speaker 1: especially in relationships, like, let's just focus on relationships now,
- 32:53Speaker 1: because this dynamic can also definitely happen in workplace environments
- 32:58Speaker 1: and work relationships.
- 33:00Speaker 2: I'm doing more than you blah blah blah. So the
- 33:03Speaker 2: mental load piece.
- 33:04Speaker 1: But then when we come into our intimate partnership's family life,
- 33:08Speaker 1: this can take a lot of different forms.
- 33:10Speaker 2: And if it's okay to ask, have you experienced this
- 33:13Speaker 2: in your.
- 33:14Speaker 1: Own life when things started feeling out of balance?
- 33:17Speaker 2: Would you mind sharing us I've been married for Jillian
- 33:20Speaker 2: bajillion years. Course, yes, of course, it's the ebb and
- 33:24Speaker 2: flow and the up and down of all of this. Yes, yes,
- 33:29Speaker 2: I mean I could give like a couple of points,
- 33:31Speaker 2: like where you know, at the start of the relationship,
- 33:33Speaker 2: you're negotiating everything. It's like getting figuring out who, who
- 33:37Speaker 2: likes what and what's you kind of kind of the
- 33:39Speaker 2: thing you said at the beginning, right, like what's important
- 33:41Speaker 2: to you? What's important to me? Yeah, where are standards
- 33:43Speaker 2: and values? And how do we align on this right
- 33:46Speaker 2: and kind of renegotiating that. But one of the things
- 33:48Speaker 2: I talked about in the book is, you know, I
- 33:50Speaker 2: am my partner my husband Casey. You know, he ran
- 33:54Speaker 2: this business in Australia. We had a micro brewery and
- 33:57Speaker 2: and the mental load there was huge, I mean yours,
- 34:03Speaker 2: you know, And how do you then maintain your relationship?
- 34:06Speaker 2: How do you renegotiate when things are heavy and difficult
- 34:10Speaker 2: and when people are chasing their dreams and it's hard,
- 34:12Speaker 2: right and you want to be the support but ever
- 34:15Speaker 2: a two career couple and what does that look like?
- 34:18Speaker 2: And so yes, there have been moments where mental loads
- 34:21Speaker 2: have spiked incredibly And I'll give you another example too.
- 34:25Speaker 2: And then you're going to feel sad for me, but
- 34:27Speaker 2: your listeners are going to feel sad for me. But
- 34:28Speaker 2: I'm going to be okay. Three months, three weeks before
- 34:31Speaker 2: this book came out, I got diagnosed with breast cancer. Wow, right,
- 34:34Speaker 2: Like who knew? But the mental load to that, to illness,
- 34:36Speaker 2: right to think about okay, is my family going to
- 34:38Speaker 2: be okay? It was incredible. My spike, right, It's a
- 34:41Speaker 2: spike in one direction, spike in one category, but the
- 34:46Speaker 2: love that my family gave me. So I guess what
- 34:47Speaker 2: I'm trying to say is this, these there are opportunities.
- 34:51Speaker 2: I have had a roller coaster of a marriage, like
- 34:53Speaker 2: many of you have. In all of the downs, we've
- 34:56Speaker 2: connected in a deer way and aligned the always a
- 35:00Speaker 2: mental load, but what it has done is allow, I think,
- 35:03Speaker 2: allow us to understand that there are moments where life
- 35:06Speaker 2: is hard, but coming together and carrying and understanding and
- 35:09Speaker 2: deepening and sharing the load is actually pretty critical. And
- 35:13Speaker 2: that took about twenty years to get the right balance
- 35:15Speaker 2: on how about you? Okay, now I'm done?
- 35:17Speaker 1: Now about I ain't get that, but I know I
- 35:18Speaker 1: just and thank you for sharing what you just But
- 35:21Speaker 1: you know, I just like the image that came into
- 35:23Speaker 1: my mind as you were talking, is like there's this
- 35:26Speaker 1: very heavy thing that like you're carrying around with you
- 35:30Speaker 1: all the time, and that if that isn't recognized and
- 35:34Speaker 1: seen and to have people who love you care about that,
- 35:37Speaker 1: it feels very lonely and it feels like energetically really debilitating.
- 35:42Speaker 1: And so that to have if you recognized and feel
- 35:45Speaker 1: like you can share it, this is important to me.
- 35:48Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it night and day, you know, like
- 35:50Speaker 1: it takes up so much headspace. I thought, that's the
- 35:53Speaker 1: experience that a lot of us are walking around with it.
- 35:55Speaker 1: It takes different forms, you know, based on our circumstances
- 35:59Speaker 1: and the things that we're orienting around.
- 36:01Speaker 2: But yeah, oh, I love you for saying that. One
- 36:04Speaker 2: of my good friends when I found out, said if
- 36:06Speaker 2: only someone had a book where you could think about
- 36:08Speaker 2: finite mental load energy and realign your way, realign your
- 36:11Speaker 2: mental load and energy strategically. I was like, I love you.
- 36:14Speaker 2: So I was She's like, use the work, use the work.
- 36:16Speaker 2: Started to do it and it's not true, were you
- 36:19Speaker 2: seeing right? Like, and I'm not alone. I mean we
- 36:21Speaker 2: heard this from people not complex care that, like they
- 36:23Speaker 2: would talk about, you know, I'm carrying this and then
- 36:26Speaker 2: I can't drop it because someone will die or someone
- 36:28Speaker 2: will be injured. That I love, and then I'm spending
- 36:31Speaker 2: my mental load energy and negotiating with you know, insurance
- 36:34Speaker 2: or schools or health. So I am in no way isolated,
- 36:38Speaker 2: and it helped give me a little deeper living experience,
- 36:40Speaker 2: insight into the experiences that were coming through the interviews.
- 36:42Speaker 2: But I guess I'm just saying exactly like you say,
- 36:45Speaker 2: you never know what people are carrying and the and
- 36:48Speaker 2: if we can share the weight in critical and key ways, God,
- 36:51Speaker 2: what a gift that would be for all of us. Okay,
- 36:53Speaker 2: but how about you can I how about you? Oh yeah,
- 36:55Speaker 2: what about to share a number of different examples?
- 36:58Speaker 1: And I think, you know, as I share previously, I
- 37:01Speaker 1: think that part of the way that I was socialized,
- 37:03Speaker 1: you know, we're sort of more oriented around work and
- 37:06Speaker 1: career and things of that nature. But I know, like
- 37:09Speaker 1: in my own relationship, and I could speak to the
- 37:11Speaker 1: other side of this dynamic I have, My husband has
- 37:15Speaker 1: and we've worked through it. It's like we're in a
- 37:17Speaker 1: better place now. But you know, he has said things
- 37:21Speaker 1: like I feel like I do everything for everybody and
- 37:23Speaker 1: nobody clays up off themselves, and you know, like describing
- 37:27Speaker 1: this experience in a way that like we all need
- 37:31Speaker 1: to pay attention to and to be able to reseet that.
- 37:37Speaker 1: You know, I've heard my I love my brother in
- 37:40Speaker 1: law so much. Every time I show up at my
- 37:44Speaker 1: sister's house, this man is wearing an apron, holding a
- 37:47Speaker 1: broom and oftentimes has some kind of like construction project
- 37:51Speaker 1: going on at the same time. And he's a very
- 37:52Speaker 1: manly man, but he's he's a fantastic cook.
- 37:55Speaker 2: He does so much stuff.
- 37:57Speaker 1: But you know, I think he has express feeling like
- 38:01Speaker 1: if it's travel planning, if it's finances, if it's all
- 38:04Speaker 1: the things, it's like, you know, just what it feels like.
- 38:08Speaker 1: My sister is an artist, and she is lovely, very
- 38:11Speaker 1: creative and absolutely beautiful, great sense of humor, but like
- 38:15Speaker 1: he's sort of the responsible one, do you know what
- 38:18Speaker 1: I mean? And so like I've heard that from that
- 38:20Speaker 1: and in so many couples, this experience of like how
- 38:27Speaker 1: that's what it boils down to, how can you not
- 38:29Speaker 1: care about this?
- 38:29Speaker 2: Why?
- 38:30Speaker 1: Because what happens, I think is that if somebody cares
- 38:34Speaker 1: about something, they feel like somebody has to do it,
- 38:38Speaker 1: and if the other person isn't going to do it,
- 38:40Speaker 1: then it falls to them. And that's where that energetic
- 38:44Speaker 1: weight comes from you know, but I think it goes
- 38:48Speaker 1: back to who cares more, like this is a silly anecdote,
- 38:54Speaker 1: so you know, And I was so grateful. I walked
- 38:57Speaker 1: in the house from work last night and my husband
- 39:00Speaker 1: had gone to the store, gotten stuff for dinner, cooking
- 39:04Speaker 1: the dinner, all the things, and I was like, I'm
- 39:06Speaker 1: going to help, and like, what do you wanta today?
- 39:08Speaker 1: Is like chop the tomatoes. I go to chop the
- 39:10Speaker 1: tomatoes and I went to grab the knife that we
- 39:14Speaker 1: use for cutting vegetables.
- 39:15Speaker 2: It was in the sink. It took it out to
- 39:17Speaker 2: thinking go chop the tomatoes, and he's like, what are
- 39:19Speaker 2: you doing?
- 39:19Speaker 1: And he literally took this knife out of my hand
- 39:23Speaker 1: and he was like this has to be washed and
- 39:26Speaker 1: turned on the hot water and the dish soap and
- 39:27Speaker 1: like scrubbed it and like I'd need like a solid
- 39:30Speaker 1: two minutes under the hot water.
- 39:31Speaker 2: I'm like, is this really necessary?
- 39:33Speaker 1: But like that would be the kind of thing that
- 39:35Speaker 1: would irritate the heck out of him, because he's like,
- 39:37Speaker 1: how how could you have cut our vegetables with this
- 39:39Speaker 1: knife without washing it first?
- 39:40Speaker 2: So you're trying to kill us.
- 39:42Speaker 1: So that would be an example of something that somebody
- 39:44Speaker 1: cares about that it felt to him like do I
- 39:47Speaker 1: really have to do this for you? But I think
- 39:49Speaker 1: that that's where it kind of comes from. I get
- 39:53Speaker 1: weird about laundry folding.
- 39:54Speaker 2: That's my jam.
- 39:56Speaker 1: So I made the terrible mistake, and I would like
- 39:59Speaker 1: to warn of one within the sound of my voice
- 40:02Speaker 1: not to do this. There's a show on Netflix Marie
- 40:05Speaker 1: Condos Tightening Up, she tidying up. She's this little Japanese woman.
- 40:09Speaker 1: I don't know if you're familiar with the show or not.
- 40:11Speaker 2: Oh I condo my house too, so keep going.
- 40:14Speaker 1: I can't you know what if I had to rewind
- 40:16Speaker 1: the clock and like, you know, there's like this fork
- 40:19Speaker 1: in the road moment of my life, it would.
- 40:20Speaker 2: Like, do not watch that show?
- 40:22Speaker 1: Because now I have very specific ideas about the way
- 40:26Speaker 1: laundry should be folded, and everybody else does it wrung.
- 40:29Speaker 1: So now I am in charge of folding the laundry
- 40:31Speaker 1: because I want it in the little squares that I
- 40:33Speaker 1: wanted to be standing up with the drawers, and like
- 40:35Speaker 1: I will literally refold the shirt that somebody else hold it.
- 40:38Speaker 1: But then it's like, oh, I have so much laundry
- 40:41Speaker 1: to fold. And you know then that starts to feel
- 40:42Speaker 1: like I think, because I care about it, is that ridiculous?
- 40:45Speaker 2: Like, oh, you're the perfect example this, Can I tell
- 40:48Speaker 2: Can I tell you? You were giving me the perfect
- 40:50Speaker 2: example of where I hope that couples end up, right, Yeah?
- 40:53Speaker 2: What I The answer? The short answer is like, there
- 40:56Speaker 2: are tasks that we have to do, like people are
- 40:58Speaker 2: gonna have to do some of the house where people
- 40:59Speaker 2: are gonna there are tasks we all have to do.
- 41:01Speaker 2: We all have to carry mental love. We have to
- 41:03Speaker 2: do some tasks to keep our household fus some things, yes,
- 41:05Speaker 2: some things right. The goal is to figure out how
- 41:08Speaker 2: do you align people with the things that they either
- 41:10Speaker 2: care the most about or love do. Yeah, that's it
- 41:13Speaker 2: I have for and the New America Better Life Lab.
- 41:17Speaker 2: At New America, we had this coin exercise where you know,
- 41:19Speaker 2: I ask people to start to articulate what is the
- 41:22Speaker 2: cost of this, right, right, like do you love to
- 41:24Speaker 2: do it? Do you hate to do it? And you
- 41:26Speaker 2: can get that for free. It's there, It's all the
- 41:28Speaker 2: website and you can access that, right. And so what
- 41:30Speaker 2: you're describing to me is actually like, hey, there's things
- 41:33Speaker 2: that I love to do, and there's things that my
- 41:34Speaker 2: partner loves to do or is better or you know,
- 41:36Speaker 2: we've allocated these ways to our strengths, to our strengths,
- 41:39Speaker 2: not based on our gender, but to our strengths, and
- 41:42Speaker 2: we are doing these the strengths big exercise. That is
- 41:46Speaker 2: what I would hear from the non head couples, from
- 41:48Speaker 2: the you know, the same sex couples that LGBTIQ plus bubbles.
- 41:51Speaker 2: They would talk about, we don't have you said this
- 41:53Speaker 2: at the top two. We don't necessarily have more equal
- 41:55Speaker 2: arrangements at home, but we don't have as gender. We
- 41:58Speaker 2: have more gender fluidery. They're not fixed, they're not stuck.
- 42:02Speaker 2: People take things based on their preference, and you're raising
- 42:04Speaker 2: another important thing, which is like and they would talk
- 42:06Speaker 2: about like, sometimes I get so sick of folding the
- 42:09Speaker 2: laundry and the little squares, Like I don't want to
- 42:11Speaker 2: do that anymore. I don't want to, So can't we
- 42:13Speaker 2: try important to me then having somebody else do it?
- 42:16Speaker 2: I mean, like, can we tell you I have to
- 42:18Speaker 2: own this? Yeah? Yeah, so can we reallocate? And they
- 42:22Speaker 2: would talk about like, okay, wow, sometimes they get bored
- 42:23Speaker 2: of doing this and then we just reallocate it. Now
- 42:26Speaker 2: you could be in charge of the dinners, right, Like
- 42:28Speaker 2: I know that this might create a drama, I know,
- 42:30Speaker 2: but like you could. And the other thing is one
- 42:33Speaker 2: of the things I ask people to do is like
- 42:34Speaker 2: good is good enough sometimes, right, If you care about
- 42:37Speaker 2: some things very importantly, then yeah, you should have you
- 42:40Speaker 2: know you should have them. But sometimes good is good enough.
- 42:42Speaker 2: And our expectations, our standards are too high, and it
- 42:47Speaker 2: creates conflict and overwhelm and so we take some of
- 42:50Speaker 2: the pressure off, some of the right stress off. And
- 42:53Speaker 2: so I think you are actually the model example of
- 42:57Speaker 2: all of this. That's hilarious.
- 42:59Speaker 1: But anyway, we need to take another short break. And
- 43:03Speaker 1: then on the other side, here's what I'd love to
- 43:06Speaker 1: do next, if you're open to this. So we have
- 43:09Speaker 1: a friend here with us right now, augur lea who
- 43:12Speaker 1: is in a relationship where they are not having a
- 43:16Speaker 1: good time. They are with somebody who seems to not care.
- 43:21Speaker 1: It feels like the weight of the world is on
- 43:22Speaker 1: their shoulders. And they have even maybe tried talking about
- 43:26Speaker 1: this with their partner and they're just it feels unsustainable,
- 43:30Speaker 1: like it's too much. They're getting burnt out something needs
- 43:34Speaker 1: to change. I love if we could talk about their experience,
- 43:40Speaker 1: but also some things that they could start doing differently
- 43:43Speaker 1: in order to take some of that burden off and
- 43:48Speaker 1: have it feel better in every level.
- 43:51Speaker 2: Is that okay? Sounds great. Before my family acquired a
- 44:09Speaker 2: Skylight a couple of years ago, it was absolute mayhem
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- 45:02Speaker 1: That is m y s k I l I g
- 45:04Speaker 1: h T dot com slash lhs.
- 45:11Speaker 2: True story.
- 45:12Speaker 1: I got so excited about an idea I had for
- 45:16Speaker 1: funny therapist T shirts that I could make them. But
- 45:20Speaker 1: then I had a crisis. I was like, oh wait,
- 45:22Speaker 1: how would that actually work? But then I thought, at
- 45:26Speaker 1: shopify dot com slash lhs. I set up a free trial,
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- 45:57Speaker 1: Start your free trial at shopify dot com slash lhs.
- 46:01Speaker 1: That's shopify dot com slash lahs. So I am back
- 46:13Speaker 1: with doctor Leah Rpaner. She is a professor of sociology
- 46:17Speaker 1: and the author of the new book Drained that talks
- 46:21Speaker 1: about what happens to us when we are out of
- 46:26Speaker 1: balance and our relationships and our lives, like too much
- 46:31Speaker 1: is on us and something needs to change. So Doctor,
- 46:35Speaker 1: just before the break, we were talking about, you know,
- 46:38Speaker 1: really diving into the experience of someone who is in
- 46:42Speaker 1: a situation that is not okay, it is not consensual.
- 46:48Speaker 1: They want things to be different. They feel like if
- 46:50Speaker 1: they stop, things are going to fall apart, and it
- 46:53Speaker 1: feels like there is no responsiveness when they try to
- 46:58Speaker 1: renegotiate the who does what from your perspective, or even
- 47:04Speaker 1: maybe a better question like what does the research say
- 47:07Speaker 1: about where we can begin to chip away with this
- 47:10Speaker 1: and you know, redistribute the load.
- 47:15Speaker 2: That's a really interesting question. One of the things that
- 47:20Speaker 2: I would hear consistently would be kind of exactly what
- 47:23Speaker 2: you're describing, were you know, one person was feeling like
- 47:25Speaker 2: if I step out of this dynamic, everything's going to
- 47:28Speaker 2: fall apart, right like I'm the lynchpin on this, and
- 47:31Speaker 2: and if I don't do it all and I don't
- 47:34Speaker 2: do it to a certain standard, things will fall apart.
- 47:37Speaker 2: I would hear about developing between one and a million
- 47:40Speaker 2: contingency plans, right like, you know, okay, what about this?
- 47:43Speaker 2: What about this? What about this? I would I would
- 47:45Speaker 2: ask if I were in this moment, I'd ask this
- 47:47Speaker 2: person just a little bit of sense checking which of
- 47:50Speaker 2: these is true? Right? Like is it true that actually
- 47:53Speaker 2: it will fall apart? Like is it true? And what
- 47:54Speaker 2: are the consequences? Like is that a fact?
- 47:57Speaker 1: Is that true?
- 47:58Speaker 2: Right? Like? From reality? Just all right? Yeah? Because sometimes
- 48:02Speaker 2: you know, we well, of course we can see the
- 48:05Speaker 2: best This is where I say the good is good enough.
- 48:07Speaker 2: Of course we can see the best option, and of
- 48:09Speaker 2: course we can see the eight million things that could
- 48:11Speaker 2: go wrong. But oftentimes the eight million things don't go wrong.
- 48:14Speaker 2: And sometimes actually, if you are so determined to have
- 48:17Speaker 2: it in one certain way, then you miss the ways
- 48:20Speaker 2: in which others. I described this in the book, like
- 48:23Speaker 2: it allows, you know, allowing people, you get to see
- 48:26Speaker 2: the individual, You get to see the different ways to
- 48:28Speaker 2: do things, and then you can see the skills and
- 48:30Speaker 2: talents of your family, and you can actually build beautiful
- 48:33Speaker 2: moods when things go wrong, right like, actually, sometimes the
- 48:35Speaker 2: things going wrong are this big and they're kind of
- 48:37Speaker 2: cute because our kids step in and do things that
- 48:39Speaker 2: are kind of funny. So I would want I would ask,
- 48:42Speaker 2: what is that in fact a true assumption? Is that
- 48:44Speaker 2: a reality check?
- 48:45Speaker 1: I would want to be an example of what we're
- 48:47Speaker 1: talking about right now, where people get get sort of
- 48:49Speaker 1: fixated on like, no, everything is going to fall apart,
- 48:51Speaker 1: and it has to be this way that you found
- 48:53Speaker 1: like when you really go in there, we have a
- 48:56Speaker 1: little bit of a wiggle room.
- 48:58Speaker 2: Like yeah, like okay, so they were well okay. For example,
- 49:02Speaker 2: I would hear things about, you know, dishwashers that got
- 49:05Speaker 2: restacked like men was okay, I'm I'm in the kitchen,
- 49:08Speaker 2: I got washed correctly.
- 49:10Speaker 1: I've had my dishwasher reorganized by the way.
- 49:14Speaker 2: Okay, yes, And then the question is if that happens
- 49:17Speaker 2: to you, let me. I'll ask, well, how do you
- 49:19Speaker 2: feel do you want to participate? Like how do you
- 49:21Speaker 2: feel in that moment when someone has come in and
- 49:23Speaker 2: redone your work after you? I don't know, I refold
- 49:27Speaker 2: the laundry. I mean, we're everybody's a weirdo in my house.
- 49:30Speaker 2: So I was like, weirdo, it's fine. So sometimes people
- 49:35Speaker 2: would do like sometimes people would describe recoming in and redoing,
- 49:39Speaker 2: and then there was like, well, I don't want to
- 49:41Speaker 2: do this. If you're just gonna if you don't let
- 49:42Speaker 2: me do it the way I am going to, then
- 49:44Speaker 2: I don't want to do the work. I would hear
- 49:47Speaker 2: talking about like, you know, a million things that could
- 49:50Speaker 2: go wrong, like okay, what if we drop the kids
- 49:52Speaker 2: off and this this goes wrong or they don't have
- 49:54Speaker 2: this or the the eighteen things, like what if they
- 49:57Speaker 2: need that? And you know, there's always this joke about
- 50:00Speaker 2: men stepping out of the house with nothing but their
- 50:02Speaker 2: keys and women stepping out of the house with a
- 50:04Speaker 2: bag full of stuff, and that is a stereotype and
- 50:09Speaker 2: it's a kind of like emblementic of this, right, And
- 50:12Speaker 2: my goal is like can't we come a little bit
- 50:14Speaker 2: to the middle, right, like like okay, maybe you don't
- 50:16Speaker 2: step outside with nothing, but do you need to step
- 50:19Speaker 2: outside with everything? And what is the cost of actually
- 50:22Speaker 2: step doing that work? To step outside with everything? There
- 50:25Speaker 2: is a cost on that, right, yeah, right, And so
- 50:28Speaker 2: how do we figure out where Okay, so this is
- 50:30Speaker 2: my long way of saying, where are things strategic crediting
- 50:35Speaker 2: valuable investments of your mental load and your energy? Where
- 50:39Speaker 2: are they actually unnecessary? They take away from you, They
- 50:42Speaker 2: don't give you anything. It's like the sugar high that
- 50:44Speaker 2: gives you know, knocks you out and makes you exhausted.
- 50:47Speaker 2: What's the nutrient dense? What's the sugar high? And how
- 50:50Speaker 2: do you get to do that? I have heard too people.
- 50:54Speaker 2: One of the things I'll ask is, like I would
- 50:56Speaker 2: ask to you, is like have you been clear on
- 50:58Speaker 2: what your dreams, goals and ambitions are? Not what that
- 51:01Speaker 2: person's doing wrong, not about the standards, but like, where
- 51:04Speaker 2: are we trying to go as a family? Where am
- 51:06Speaker 2: I trying to go as an individual? And using that
- 51:08Speaker 2: as the anchor point to come in and have the
- 51:10Speaker 2: conversation about what work is valuable and not because I
- 51:13Speaker 2: think that's a useful starting point as opposed to I've
- 51:17Speaker 2: asc you eighting times you don't care about it, this, this,
- 51:19Speaker 2: and this getting clear on Okay, here's where we're trying
- 51:22Speaker 2: to go, here's what I value, Here's what's my non negotiable.
- 51:24Speaker 2: How can I communicate that to my partner? Of like,
- 51:27Speaker 2: this is where I'm trying to go, this is my
- 51:29Speaker 2: and then what is the labor that needs to come
- 51:31Speaker 2: around that? And then you have the anchor point to
- 51:33Speaker 2: refer back to, Oh, I really think it's important for
- 51:35Speaker 2: me to do X, Y or Z, how do we
- 51:37Speaker 2: do that? What does that look like? Remain curious a
- 51:39Speaker 2: little bit in that moment, and then be an active listener.
- 51:42Speaker 2: That's what I would say, Yeah, would say, Okay, what
- 51:44Speaker 2: would you say, how did I do it?
- 51:46Speaker 1: Oh?
- 51:46Speaker 2: No, I don't know.
- 51:47Speaker 1: I think that's great, and I love what you're saying
- 51:50Speaker 1: because I think that there's this level of self awareness
- 51:54Speaker 1: and when when I look at this, you know, of
- 51:55Speaker 1: course there's like the marriage counselor lens right, but also
- 51:58Speaker 1: even in my own life, it's like, there are these
- 52:01Speaker 1: core beliefs about what should be happening that could be
- 52:07Speaker 1: different from person to person, and that if we believe
- 52:11Speaker 1: with all our heart and soul that this should be happening,
- 52:14Speaker 1: and something terrible is going to happen. If it isn't happening,
- 52:18Speaker 1: and our partner perceives that differently, there's this there could
- 52:23Speaker 1: be a real disconnection. And what I have seen as
- 52:27Speaker 1: a marriage counselor is that there can be a lot
- 52:31Speaker 1: of criticism and conflict around trying to get a partner
- 52:37Speaker 1: to be more like them in a way that can
- 52:41Speaker 1: really tank a dynamic and push a partner away make
- 52:45Speaker 1: somebody feel very alone.
- 52:47Speaker 2: But I was kind of laughing a little bit as
- 52:49Speaker 2: you were talking about like walking out of the house
- 52:51Speaker 2: with the keys right and thinking of an experience that
- 52:56Speaker 2: I had personally.
- 52:57Speaker 1: It was probably a couple of months ago now. So
- 52:59Speaker 1: I have seven, oh my gosh, now eight year old
- 53:02Speaker 1: and I went to the pool with my kid and
- 53:06Speaker 1: another mom friend. It was like a family and my
- 53:10Speaker 1: mom friend had like I don't even know how many bags.
- 53:14Speaker 1: There was a bag full of clothes, there was a
- 53:16Speaker 1: bag full of toys, There was a bag full of snacks,
- 53:20Speaker 1: there was a bag full of towels, like all of
- 53:23Speaker 1: these things, right, I think she had a tent. It
- 53:26Speaker 1: was it was out of control, and I like, my
- 53:29Speaker 1: kid got her little swimsuit on before we left. I
- 53:34Speaker 1: think I brought a towel and Keiths because they have
- 53:37Speaker 1: a snack.
- 53:38Speaker 2: Bar and a water fountain, like it'll be fine.
- 53:40Speaker 1: And she lost her mind when I didn't even have
- 53:43Speaker 1: a change of clothes, because I was like, she cameade
- 53:46Speaker 1: home in a bathing suit, is fine, and but like
- 53:49Speaker 1: that kind of thing, like if she was married to me,
- 53:53Speaker 1: she might be really upset because she would believe that
- 53:57Speaker 1: she is, you know, and all this mental energy into
- 54:01Speaker 1: getting the kids ready for swimming or whatever. And I'm
- 54:05Speaker 1: not participating when Virginia Satier actually said this. Virginia Sittyre
- 54:10Speaker 1: is a marriage and family therapist you know back in
- 54:12Speaker 1: the seventies, like its expirential, But she said, there are
- 54:15Speaker 1: literally hundreds of different ways to wash dishes, and what
- 54:20Speaker 1: makes your way so much more special and important than
- 54:22Speaker 1: somebody else's way?
- 54:24Speaker 2: Necessarily right?
- 54:25Speaker 1: And of course there can be people with different values
- 54:27Speaker 1: and opinions about the way that they should be and
- 54:29Speaker 1: that's valid. But like, I think what you're speaking to
- 54:33Speaker 1: is the individual, Like, how did I come to believe
- 54:37Speaker 1: that this was so important and that this is what
- 54:39Speaker 1: we should be doing? And you're tying a lot of
- 54:42Speaker 1: that in your work, I know, to gender socialization forces
- 54:46Speaker 1: that we might not be aware of. I think fully
- 54:50Speaker 1: was a bit buffered by this in my own life,
- 54:52Speaker 1: but it is, it is real for many people.
- 54:55Speaker 2: Do you want to say more about that? It's so
- 54:58Speaker 2: funny when you said it, like I have to get
- 54:59Speaker 2: rid of that. I must. It's why I have a
- 55:01Speaker 2: section in the book where I talk about starting to
- 55:03Speaker 2: quiet your I must, I should, and the what IFFs right?
- 55:06Speaker 2: Like I must do it because I must have these
- 55:09Speaker 2: eighteen bags because if my kid doesn't have the perfect
- 55:11Speaker 2: experience at the pool or something goes wrong or right,
- 55:14Speaker 2: it's like, then then what does that mean? For their future.
- 55:16Speaker 2: I mean sometimes we can go in that direction, right
- 55:18Speaker 2: like yeah, like like what does that mean? And I
- 55:21Speaker 2: will say to you, as a sociologist, what I think
- 55:23Speaker 2: is going on is we've like slowly or quickly eroded
- 55:26Speaker 2: all sorts of supports, social supports, community policy support. And
- 55:32Speaker 2: we've basically said to you know, healthcare support, all the supports,
- 55:36Speaker 2: and we say to families like, you're on your own.
- 55:37Speaker 2: You are now individually responsible for making sure that your
- 55:40Speaker 2: child not only is safe. Most of the Milkie talks
- 55:42Speaker 2: about safeguarding children's features. I love this idea. Not only
- 55:45Speaker 2: are they safe crossing the street, but you need to
- 55:47Speaker 2: make sure they're safe against you know, inflation and global
- 55:50Speaker 2: warming and fill in the blank, right like, and so
- 55:52Speaker 2: now some mother sitting in Poughkeepsie is like responsible for
- 55:55Speaker 2: making sure that their child is prepared for a you know,
- 55:58Speaker 2: stock market crash in twenty Oh my god. Generative AI ridiculous,
- 56:03Speaker 2: right Like, actually, if we brought commune, It's just like
- 56:06Speaker 2: there's this direct correlation I think between the right uber capitalism, neoliberalism,
- 56:11Speaker 2: and then there's like pressure on us cause and pressure
- 56:14Speaker 2: to be perfect. And what I love about what you're
- 56:17Speaker 2: describing is you've you've got. I'm asking women to do this,
- 56:21Speaker 2: get rid of some of this. I should like there's
- 56:24Speaker 2: a snack bar and they can sit on the on
- 56:25Speaker 2: the chair and that's a okay, right right, it's all
- 56:29Speaker 2: gonna be okay. And that idea that there's one hundred
- 56:31Speaker 2: different ways to do something is we can learn through that.
- 56:33Speaker 2: I have made a friend. I'm like, they're forty years old.
- 56:37Speaker 2: My friend came over and loaded up my dishwasher. I'm
- 56:39Speaker 2: just going to tell you this because this has changed
- 56:41Speaker 2: my life. And maybe you already do this, you already
- 56:44Speaker 2: is I never did when I would load the dishwasher,
- 56:46Speaker 2: I would throw all the cutlery and as fast as
- 56:47Speaker 2: possible in whatever direction away. She organized everything like spoons
- 56:52Speaker 2: and one forks and one yes. It is like has
- 56:57Speaker 2: changed my life in that like now you don't have
- 56:59Speaker 2: to at the end, it's.
- 57:01Speaker 1: All just like free sorting. I know that that is
- 57:04Speaker 1: a strategy, okay, exactly.
- 57:06Speaker 2: And now if I had been pernicious about my house
- 57:09Speaker 2: and that's the wrong word, particular about my house, yeah,
- 57:11Speaker 2: and said and said no, no, no, don't load the dishwasher,
- 57:14Speaker 2: or I got it, or I pushed her out of
- 57:15Speaker 2: the way, I would have been denied a life changing
- 57:20Speaker 2: dishwasher sorting strategy. So how can we start to see
- 57:24Speaker 2: the total variation in each of us humans that then
- 57:28Speaker 2: allows us to learn and be and play in different ways.
- 57:31Speaker 1: I love this, And you know what that is an
- 57:33Speaker 1: exit strategy if you are caught it with feeling trapped
- 57:37Speaker 1: like I have all the things like what would actually
- 57:40Speaker 1: happen if you made space for your partner to do
- 57:44Speaker 1: things their own way, like we can have some cheese
- 57:47Speaker 1: and crackers and baby carrots for dinner.
- 57:49Speaker 2: Right, you know, like that kind of thing exactly.
- 57:51Speaker 1: And now I also just want to say out loud
- 57:55Speaker 1: that it is also true that you may be with
- 57:59Speaker 1: a non functional partner who has major depressive disorder, who
- 58:04Speaker 1: is struggling with the untreated you know, substance abuse problem
- 58:07Speaker 1: where they.
- 58:07Speaker 2: Are literally non functional.
- 58:10Speaker 1: And that's that's a different problem and a different conversation.
- 58:14Speaker 2: Right. What we're talking about here is taking a step
- 58:18Speaker 2: back so somebody else can can take a step up.
- 58:20Speaker 2: And what you can control are your own.
- 58:23Speaker 1: This is the way kinds of things that may or
- 58:26Speaker 1: may not be be true, right that that's one strategy question,
- 58:32Speaker 1: though when it comes to because this is all about
- 58:37Speaker 1: what people care about, right, this is and why we
- 58:40Speaker 1: care about them. How have we been taught to believe
- 58:42Speaker 1: that these things are important?
- 58:44Speaker 2: Have you?
- 58:45Speaker 1: Has your research uncovered ways that have been effective in
- 58:50Speaker 1: creating a mutually consensual shared vision for what our life
- 58:58Speaker 1: should be like that makes space for both people's truth.
- 59:02Speaker 2: There Where is that more of a clinical application or
- 59:06Speaker 2: a practice application? I think it's both or you know,
- 59:11Speaker 2: I think this is one of the goals I have
- 59:14Speaker 2: for the mental load audit is to start this conversation.
- 59:17Speaker 2: Start to have people have at least a little bit
- 59:18Speaker 2: of the tools and do the thinking work to start
- 59:21Speaker 2: this conversation. One of the things I like about what
- 59:23Speaker 2: I created. How about that for an egoic statement? How
- 59:27Speaker 2: about that for arrogance? I didn't even register that you
- 59:31Speaker 2: toot your horn? Girl? Let's good, thank you. One of
- 59:34Speaker 2: the things ALL like about what I created is the
- 59:36Speaker 2: fact that you can do this individually, right, Like, if
- 59:38Speaker 2: you have a partner. And it's interesting when you said
- 59:41Speaker 2: your partner, there might be other things going on, right,
- 59:43Speaker 2: and this is not what we're speaking yeah, right, And
- 59:45Speaker 2: in addition to that, we have your partner, you might
- 59:48Speaker 2: not have an One of the myths I talk about
- 59:50Speaker 2: is like most of us don't have equal relationships. We're
- 59:53Speaker 2: told we do, we're told we should, but we don't,
- 59:56Speaker 2: and you might feel it's very I heard a lot
- 59:59Speaker 2: from couples who are trying to fight towards fifty to fifty.
- 1:00:02Speaker 2: You might not want fifty to fifty. You might want
- 1:00:04Speaker 2: ebbs and flows and ups and downs, and you might
- 1:00:06Speaker 2: want equity but not the quality. Two different things, right,
- 1:00:09Speaker 2: And so I guess what I'm trying to say to
- 1:00:11Speaker 2: you is I am not here to tell you what
- 1:00:12Speaker 2: to do with your partnership. Because you might have something
- 1:00:15Speaker 2: that's totally unbalanced and you're happy that's and that's great, right,
- 1:00:19Speaker 2: like that's or even in different directions. But my goal
- 1:00:22Speaker 2: for you would be to to if you don't, if
- 1:00:26Speaker 2: you're the person is like I don't and I want
- 1:00:27Speaker 2: some change, But I would hear from women like, Okay, great,
- 1:00:30Speaker 2: now I'm going to have to get him to do
- 1:00:31Speaker 2: this audit and come in and try to or you're
- 1:00:34Speaker 2: you know, a partner where you're not aligned with them
- 1:00:36Speaker 2: and have to force them into this. And my answer
- 1:00:39Speaker 2: for you is no, you don't have to actually want
- 1:00:41Speaker 2: even just you getting clear, So this can be something
- 1:00:43Speaker 2: you do individually. Inclusion, this can be something you can
- 1:00:46Speaker 2: do individually, and even you just getting clear on where
- 1:00:49Speaker 2: am I trying to go? What do I value? What
- 1:00:50Speaker 2: are the muss I shouldn't do? Where's my energy going to?
- 1:00:52Speaker 2: I wanted to go in that direction? Even that, just
- 1:00:54Speaker 2: self reflective work and reclaiming your mental load, reclaiming your
- 1:00:58Speaker 2: energy back, that can shift your relationship with ways that
- 1:01:02Speaker 2: you don't have to do it as a couple. And
- 1:01:03Speaker 2: then in the ideal world, like you said, you come
- 1:01:06Speaker 2: together and you have that conversation together about where do
- 1:01:10Speaker 2: we go, what do we value, what do we care about,
- 1:01:12Speaker 2: what's important to us, who's important to us? What kind
- 1:01:15Speaker 2: of world do we want to create? What kind of
- 1:01:16Speaker 2: legacies do we want to do? I think right now
- 1:01:18Speaker 2: people are so burnt out those big, big, actually very exciting,
- 1:01:22Speaker 2: dreamy things. We're so conditioned to be scrolling and worry,
- 1:01:27Speaker 2: you know, thinking about everything, giving our mental load energy.
- 1:01:29Speaker 2: We've been told if we're informed, we're engaged. If you're
- 1:01:32Speaker 2: informed all the time in your burnt drop all some
- 1:01:36Speaker 2: of the information and create some space for your dreams
- 1:01:38Speaker 2: and your partner's dreams. I just even if you do
- 1:01:41Speaker 2: it independent, like yes, together it'll be great, but individually
- 1:01:45Speaker 2: even that can take a little shift, right, just a
- 1:01:48Speaker 2: little shift.
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: And so research supports that, you know, and again, you know,
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: from a systemic perspective marriage Failly therapy, like when one
- 1:01:56Speaker 1: part of a system changes, meaning like you or me,
- 1:02:00Speaker 1: it changes the whole dynamic. And so don't devalue changes
- 1:02:04Speaker 1: that you you make on your own and and right,
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: maybe shifting from how do I get my partner to
- 1:02:10Speaker 1: sit down and do this workshoot with me too, you know,
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: maybe getting curious what what do they care about?
- 1:02:17Speaker 2: Yes, what do I care about something? And like what
- 1:02:21Speaker 2: if one conversation that is like, oh, you know, excited
- 1:02:24Speaker 2: about X Y. You know, I'm excited about doing this.
- 1:02:25Speaker 2: I'm excited about a new project. I want to learn Italian.
- 1:02:28Speaker 2: There's an energy that comes from when you're stepping in
- 1:02:32Speaker 2: with your ambitions, right, I mean, well that's one very
- 1:02:38Speaker 2: last thing, and then I know you need to wrap up.
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: But so so when your research and you know, even
- 1:02:43Speaker 1: as we were reflecting on I was reflecting on the
- 1:02:47Speaker 1: things so we talked about today. You know, I think
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: as I reflecting on my own life and how it,
- 1:02:53Speaker 1: you know, is maybe compared to what research shows is
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: the norm or whatever. I mean, it's it's certainly does
- 1:03:00Speaker 1: not represent my relationship in any way. But I think
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: that a large part of that is probably due to
- 1:03:08Speaker 1: early socialization influences, So me being raised by a dad
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: who was a feminist, and there were only messages about
- 1:03:17Speaker 1: how are you going to take care of yourself?
- 1:03:19Speaker 2: You know, like all of that.
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: My husband, in contrast, he grew up in a family
- 1:03:24Speaker 1: where he really did take on more of like a
- 1:03:26Speaker 1: caretaking role, and so like there you go. And I
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: think that in our family, like you know, our older
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: child son, he has all kinds of fluidity and one
- 1:03:38Speaker 1: of his very favorite things is cooking, and so like
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: he likes, you know, taking charge of those and creating
- 1:03:44Speaker 1: spaces for it to be okay to be a lot
- 1:03:47Speaker 1: of different ways in your life. Right, But what have
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: you found research say that you know, parenting practices or
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: perhaps early messages that can buffer people well from conforming
- 1:04:02Speaker 1: to some of these like gender based ideals that maybe
- 1:04:06Speaker 1: aren't really true for them. I mean, we always laugh
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: because like my daughter's school, something comes up. They still
- 1:04:15Speaker 1: call me for some reason, which I think is hilarious,
- 1:04:17Speaker 1: like jokes on you, dude, but like that is our society.
- 1:04:21Speaker 2: There are a lot of assumptions being.
- 1:04:22Speaker 1: Made about who's supposed to do what and all that jazz.
- 1:04:25Speaker 1: What do you say to that?
- 1:04:25Speaker 2: What's the research there? I love what you're talking about
- 1:04:28Speaker 2: early exposure. I love what you're talking about is like
- 1:04:31Speaker 2: two things, like making the box bigger for everyone. It's like,
- 1:04:34Speaker 2: what type? That's very sociological, right, Like how do we
- 1:04:36Speaker 2: make the box of activity that people can engage in
- 1:04:39Speaker 2: without judgment, without fear, without social penalty, bigger and more fluid.
- 1:04:43Speaker 2: I was just at a talk the other day where
- 1:04:46Speaker 2: Stephanie Koontz was talking about, like there was this split
- 1:04:49Speaker 2: in the history where actually femininity and masculinity became at
- 1:04:52Speaker 2: opposition that you know, if you're more feminine, you're less masculine,
- 1:04:55Speaker 2: And what a shame for all of us that this
- 1:04:57Speaker 2: has happened. When I think about the research, I think
- 1:05:00Speaker 2: about what you've described as opportunity, early opportunities for care.
- 1:05:04Speaker 2: For caring and for caregiving is such a life changing experience,
- 1:05:08Speaker 2: and it's life changing across different demographics and at all
- 1:05:11Speaker 2: moments in time. To be humanist a care We're all
- 1:05:14Speaker 2: going to have to be cared for or cared by
- 1:05:16Speaker 2: someone else at some moment in time, and so to
- 1:05:19Speaker 2: open the opportunity and there's so much value that comes
- 1:05:22Speaker 2: from that connection to each other. We had a research
- 1:05:24Speaker 2: project where we actually ask people about their confidence, right
- 1:05:27Speaker 2: are you confidence caring? Confident caring for little babies, toddlers
- 1:05:31Speaker 2: and then you know, children who are about school aged.
- 1:05:34Speaker 2: And what we found was actually women on average had
- 1:05:36Speaker 2: to higher confidence across everything, but that confidence gat closed
- 1:05:42Speaker 2: when people became dads, right Like. The dads were just
- 1:05:44Speaker 2: as confident in their caregiving across ages when they had
- 1:05:49Speaker 2: the direct experience of care. And I think one of
- 1:05:51Speaker 2: the things that we've done is we've made care dirty
- 1:05:55Speaker 2: for men, right Like. We've done that in a really
- 1:05:58Speaker 2: perverse and disgusting way within society, to make men feel
- 1:06:01Speaker 2: like when they're caregiving that there's that they're going to
- 1:06:03Speaker 2: be called the pedophile or there's some risk to them,
- 1:06:05Speaker 2: right like about caring for others. And that message comes
- 1:06:09Speaker 2: so early. I mean, I know, I'm like on a
- 1:06:10Speaker 2: tangent ram, but I do know it's good. Sorry, i know,
- 1:06:13Speaker 2: I'm like, now I'm really out in the woods. But
- 1:06:15Speaker 2: I just want to say, like that that's a social
- 1:06:18Speaker 2: conditioning and that's a context that actually I think what
- 1:06:21Speaker 2: you're describing is like we all come in and we
- 1:06:23Speaker 2: care for each other and the ways in which we
- 1:06:25Speaker 2: can and we celebrate that, right. I think that is
- 1:06:28Speaker 2: a critical moment, in particular bringing boys in early on
- 1:06:32Speaker 2: to the care and then showing young girls right like
- 1:06:35Speaker 2: that there's not it's not just caregiving, right, it's a
- 1:06:38Speaker 2: little bit opening the box. That's what I think. It's
- 1:06:40Speaker 2: all about opening the box set. So, yeah, there's a
- 1:06:43Speaker 2: range of experiences, activities, behaviors that are non gendered like
- 1:06:47Speaker 2: that are just things that humans do, not things that
- 1:06:49Speaker 2: women do, not things that men do.
- 1:06:50Speaker 1: We all do absolutely, and so you just think like
- 1:06:54Speaker 1: giving young people exposure to lots of different ways of
- 1:06:57Speaker 1: thinking about things and exposure to different opportunities and activities
- 1:07:02Speaker 1: to see what does like kind of naturally in alignment
- 1:07:05Speaker 1: with them and what they want to develop as opposed
- 1:07:08Speaker 1: to sort of predetermined rules about the way things should know,
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: you're going to play with the pink toys or the
- 1:07:13Speaker 1: blue toys, like.
- 1:07:13Speaker 2: That kind of thing. Exactly opening up the options and
- 1:07:16Speaker 2: why I love. What you said is like, we're trying
- 1:07:18Speaker 2: to do that in the family because we know once
- 1:07:19Speaker 2: they move out into society, we can't control that it's
- 1:07:22Speaker 2: gonna cos that's true.
- 1:07:24Speaker 1: So you mean, yeah, well, and gosh, we could keep
- 1:07:28Speaker 1: going say more about an observation of society and where
- 1:07:32Speaker 1: that can can happen in ways that are subtle.
- 1:07:35Speaker 2: Absolutely, even what you just described about. One of the
- 1:07:38Speaker 2: things I heard from parents across was like, I get
- 1:07:41Speaker 2: if the mother got so much school correspondence, they text me,
- 1:07:45Speaker 2: they call me one One mother said like, I am
- 1:07:47Speaker 2: in a secure bunker, my cell phone does not work.
- 1:07:51Speaker 2: I have put down called dad right, and they still
- 1:07:54Speaker 2: call me first. And so this is ways in which
- 1:07:56Speaker 2: you know even and then on those school level because
- 1:08:00Speaker 2: we've talked to people at schools and they'll say, well,
- 1:08:01Speaker 2: sometimes the dads don't pick up right, the moms pick up,
- 1:08:04Speaker 2: and so this is this way, mom does not pick up.
- 1:08:06Speaker 2: I don't pick up either. This is where it's like,
- 1:08:09Speaker 2: this is where you know you can be explicit, like
- 1:08:12Speaker 2: I don't want to be called, and yet you're still called.
- 1:08:15Speaker 2: That is so when you gave that example, I thought,
- 1:08:17Speaker 2: oh man, we heard this across at interviews at schools
- 1:08:20Speaker 2: reinforce this and that they put work on mothers and
- 1:08:24Speaker 2: right and so, but any movement through the world right,
- 1:08:28Speaker 2: things that people are going to say, ways in which
- 1:08:30Speaker 2: we get pushed back into our boxes. You're like in
- 1:08:32Speaker 2: this little box, and women's box can sometimes be a
- 1:08:35Speaker 2: little bit bigger about what you can do. And I
- 1:08:37Speaker 2: think that men have a narrow box about what is appropriate.
- 1:08:41Speaker 2: And so my goal is like, let's get rid of
- 1:08:43Speaker 2: the boxes. Let's just like you get a rainbow. Let's
- 1:08:45Speaker 2: make it like you can do whatever.
- 1:08:47Speaker 1: Totally absolutely, And I love that too. It's like, you know,
- 1:08:51Speaker 1: f you and your stupid box is like we all
- 1:08:54Speaker 1: have to decide what we want to participate in or not,
- 1:08:56Speaker 1: and you know, to sort of who cares of other
- 1:08:59Speaker 1: people think you should be a certain way.
- 1:09:02Speaker 2: They're not in.
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: Charge of you in your life. And you're going to
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: feel a lot better if you can like have that
- 1:09:08Speaker 1: be true.
- 1:09:09Speaker 2: So I love Can I give you an example from
- 1:09:11Speaker 2: my child, just to give one more. Yeah, yeah, okay,
- 1:09:14Speaker 2: So I have a daughter, right, and she was about
- 1:09:17Speaker 2: three and she went through many of you have daughters
- 1:09:19Speaker 2: who even if you're like me and you're trying to
- 1:09:21Speaker 2: create a gender fluid world. Gender just shows up, right.
- 1:09:24Speaker 2: So she was obsessed with princesses and clippi clop shoes,
- 1:09:27Speaker 2: which you call clipic colp shies, and so she would
- 1:09:29Speaker 2: show up in princesses and clippic colop shoes. She said,
- 1:09:32Speaker 2: my friend Benji, who was a little boy, he really
- 1:09:34Speaker 2: wants a pair of clippy cop shoes. Can I bring
- 1:09:36Speaker 2: him one? Of course you can't. And he really likes yellow,
- 1:09:39Speaker 2: so he'd like the yellow clippy cop shoes. So we
- 1:09:41Speaker 2: brought of course, bring whatever share with Benji, give him
- 1:09:44Speaker 2: the clippy cop shoes, right, So we brought that into
- 1:09:46Speaker 2: the daycare center. There was an uproar from some of
- 1:09:49Speaker 2: the parents because they felt like this was inappropriate to have,
- 1:09:52Speaker 2: you know, this moment. And what they said to us
- 1:09:56Speaker 2: was like, actually, kids aren't thinking in gender norms. They're not.
- 1:09:59Speaker 2: They're just actually spiram I like the way it sounds
- 1:10:02Speaker 2: or something so kind of interesting. Yeah, And we then
- 1:10:05Speaker 2: come in and impose that on that this age, they're
- 1:10:07Speaker 2: just they're flu They're moving through the world and trying
- 1:10:10Speaker 2: to figure out the world. And so this is like
- 1:10:11Speaker 2: at three, right at three, you're being told you you
- 1:10:15Speaker 2: can you can't. This is not for you. This is
- 1:10:17Speaker 2: for you, and that's just the start, right, yes, and
- 1:10:19Speaker 2: now we go from there. That's wild.
- 1:10:23Speaker 1: I have to I have to show you think we're
- 1:10:25Speaker 1: like bonding now, doctor Leo, that this is but like so,
- 1:10:29Speaker 1: but I really I have to wonder about, like how
- 1:10:32Speaker 1: much of this stuff is hardwired. Like my my niece,
- 1:10:37Speaker 1: you know, we we called her Princess Evelyn because she
- 1:10:40Speaker 1: she was that, you know, with the dresses and all
- 1:10:42Speaker 1: the things. But like, let's see if I could so
- 1:10:46Speaker 1: my my kid. I don't while I don't know if
- 1:10:48Speaker 1: I can find this photo. But like she is now eight,
- 1:10:52Speaker 1: and when she was three, she oh, here's what I'm
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: looking for, very interruptiles. We took her to this the
- 1:11:00Speaker 1: no seriously, like at a festival kind of thing, you know,
- 1:11:03Speaker 1: that the face painting, and she could do the princess
- 1:11:05Speaker 1: or whatever. She's like, no, give me the snake right
- 1:11:08Speaker 1: on the side of my face, like she's at a
- 1:11:10Speaker 1: reptiles she has the snakes. But let's like, no, I
- 1:11:14Speaker 1: do not like snakes. Actually we never had that conversation
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: or ill, like, you know, snakes are cool.
- 1:11:18Speaker 2: It's just like kind of who she is. I don't
- 1:11:21Speaker 2: think of an ear does this even come from? But
- 1:11:24Speaker 2: that's wild, That is just wild. Huh. And so how right,
- 1:11:28Speaker 2: how do you then nurture the individual and their preferences
- 1:11:31Speaker 2: and who they are in their core and their spirit. Yeah,
- 1:11:34Speaker 2: and try to keep some of that social bullshit away
- 1:11:36Speaker 2: for as long as you can pry or give them
- 1:11:38Speaker 2: the tools, which is, Michael, give you the dress to
- 1:11:40Speaker 2: go Nah, reject that, right, Like, yeah, to be fair
- 1:11:43Speaker 2: to you is what you do. By the way, as
- 1:11:44Speaker 2: you describe this, I'm like, that's what you're doing. You're
- 1:11:47Speaker 2: a sociologists, So congratulations.
- 1:11:49Speaker 1: Okay, I'm anatterary sociologist, but you know, like, but but
- 1:11:52Speaker 1: it would also it seemed to me like in order
- 1:11:55Speaker 1: to create that space for your kids to be who
- 1:11:58Speaker 1: and whatever they are, and if they want to be
- 1:12:01Speaker 1: some hyper masculine I have, like, go for it, that's
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: fine too, but like it would seem like you need
- 1:12:08Speaker 1: to manage your own conditioning first, because otherwise you're going
- 1:12:12Speaker 1: to be influenced by these shoulds and anxieties and what
- 1:12:16Speaker 1: are people going.
- 1:12:16Speaker 2: To think and maybe even not even be aware of it?
- 1:12:19Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, such an interesting conversation, right, going, Oh my gosh,
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: we're gonna turn into like a Joe Rogan like seven
- 1:12:28Speaker 1: hour podcast and we are Oh my gosh, no, we
- 1:12:32Speaker 1: could talk all that and this was such a fun conversation.
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: I'm glad we did this today.
- 1:12:36Speaker 2: This is good. Thank you for having me. Hey, before
- 1:12:39Speaker 2: I let you go, so you have your book drained,
- 1:12:42Speaker 2: reduce your mental load to do less.
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: And be more, doctor Leah Repanner.
- 1:12:48Speaker 2: So we've been speaking with but you have you have
- 1:12:50Speaker 2: a website.
- 1:12:50Speaker 1: You have a question before I let you go, tell
- 1:12:52Speaker 1: us more about where people can find you if they
- 1:12:54Speaker 1: want to start, you know, working through this stuff.
- 1:12:56Speaker 2: And yeah, okay, y'all, I will tell you how great
- 1:12:59Speaker 2: I I am everywhere. So I'm on, don't you worry.
- 1:13:04Speaker 2: I have an Instagram that I'm active on Instagram. I
- 1:13:07Speaker 2: have a LinkedIn. I have a TikTok. You can go
- 1:13:09Speaker 2: to www dot light and lap dot com. Take it.
- 1:13:12Speaker 2: I have a podcast to you. I have a podcast
- 1:13:14Speaker 2: called he Was Perceived, where I'm talking to you about
- 1:13:16Speaker 2: the mental lead and I'm talking about some gender stuff.
- 1:13:18Speaker 2: Oh oh, and I just started a substack today. I
- 1:13:20Speaker 2: don't know. I'm actually dass.
- 1:13:22Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, I get kind of managed during the
- 1:13:25Speaker 1: summer too, so like maybe that's a.
- 1:13:29Speaker 2: Normal okay, good, but I really do, like I know,
- 1:13:32Speaker 2: I want to hear from you. I'm saying this sincerely,
- 1:13:35Speaker 2: Like I uh, I have decades of research of eighty
- 1:13:38Speaker 2: articles I'm published, but like this is I want to
- 1:13:41Speaker 2: hear how these ideas. I'm trying to get the ideas
- 1:13:43Speaker 2: into the world, and I want to know what connects
- 1:13:46Speaker 2: for you, what resonates, what doesn't, because that's the next
- 1:13:49Speaker 2: research idea, right It helps to strengthen and when you
- 1:13:51Speaker 2: give me your insights and your information, I synthesize it
- 1:13:54Speaker 2: and I bring it back out to the world. So
- 1:13:56Speaker 2: thank you for this.
- 1:13:58Speaker 1: Well okay, so get in touch with doctor lee way
- 1:14:00Speaker 1: in on your experience. I'll put it into the hopper
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: and maybe turn it into your next book. Okay, book
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: again has drained Doctor Lea Rahpanner Lighten Lab dot com,
- 1:14:12Speaker 1: and thank you so much, doctor Lea.
- 1:14:14Speaker 2: This was a really fun conversation. This was great. Thank
- 1:14:19Speaker 2: you for having me. Thank you.
- 1:14:24Speaker 1: Before my family acquired a skylight a couple of years ago,
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: it was absolute mayhem, just dealing with all those school emails.
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- 1:16:20Speaker 1: h s. Thank you so much for spending this time
- 1:16:57Speaker 1: with me today, and if you have found this episode helpful,
- 1:17:02Speaker 1: do your good deed for the day, Pass it on,
- 1:17:05Speaker 1: pay it forward, Share this episode with someone you care
- 1:17:10Speaker 1: about who might need to hear what you just heard today.
- 1:17:15Speaker 1: Close your eyes, think about who that is, and then
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: boop hits end. Now. As for you, if you are
- 1:17:23Speaker 1: feeling inspired by what we talked about today, if you're
- 1:17:26Speaker 1: ready to go deeper, whether it's in your relationship, your
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: own personal development, or maybe even your bigger sense of purpose,
- 1:17:35Speaker 1: I would love to help you. Come visit me at
- 1:17:38Speaker 1: growing self dot com. I have so many free resources
- 1:17:42Speaker 1: for you, but you can also schedule a free consultation
- 1:17:46Speaker 1: with one of the amazing licensed therapists on my team
- 1:17:50Speaker 1: who like me, specialize in evidence based coaching psychology.
- 1:17:55Speaker 2: You can do that.
- 1:17:57Speaker 1: You can also explore the program that we have designed
- 1:18:02Speaker 1: for you to create real and lasting change in your
- 1:18:05Speaker 1: life in a structured, step by step way. And do
- 1:18:09Speaker 1: not forget to go into my blog and podcast, my
- 1:18:12Speaker 1: content collections where you can find exactly what you need
- 1:18:18Speaker 1: to support your journey of growth. And hey, let's also
- 1:18:23Speaker 1: stay connected. If we're not already connected, come track me down.
- 1:18:27Speaker 1: I am on Instagram periodically and would love to.
- 1:18:31Speaker 2: Hear from you.
- 1:18:32Speaker 1: Or if you have a question or comment about the show,
- 1:18:35Speaker 1: just email me get in touch hello at growingself dot com.
- 1:18:39Speaker 1: All right, until next time, you take care and keep
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: growing