Latest / Found at 17 | Abandonment Wounds & Relationship Patterns / Why Can’t I Relax? When Rest, Fun & Doing Nothing Make You Feel Guilty

Transcript

Why Can’t I Relax? When Rest, Fun & Doing Nothing Make You Feel Guilty · Found at 17 | Abandonment Wounds & Relationship Patterns

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  When was the last time you did something that had absolutely no
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  point to it? Not for your kids, not for your
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  house, just a thing you did because it was fun and that was
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  the whole reason. If you're sitting there trying
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  to come up with a reason and you can't, that's why we're doing
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  this episode. I was having coffee with a
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  friend a few weeks ago, somebody I'd only met recently.
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  And we got into it right away, talking about all the work we're
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  constantly doing in ourselves, healing this, working through
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  that, trying to be better mothers and better wives and
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  better people. And somewhere in there she said
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  something about how many rigid adults are there.
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  And I said 100%, because at some point you have to be able to let
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  loose a little, be carefree. Sometimes you have to keep that
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  childlike part of you without being childish.
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  Those are two different things. And I want to be clear about
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  that upfront because I'm not talking about walking away from
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  your responsibilities to go off and find yourself while
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  everybody else picks up your slack.
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  That's not what I'm asking you to do.
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  Then she said, how many adults do you think still play?
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  And I said, I don't think they play.
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  And I bet money that it's their nervous systems, because
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  something taught them young that play was a problem and they
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  never unlearned it. She and I kept talking, and the
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  more she talked I realized maybe I should make an episode out of
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  it. I kept thinking about it because
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  I used to play. I know what it feels like.
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  I played a lot as a kid. I was in fantasyland half the
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  time. And I know some of you right now
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  are thinking and listening to this saying.
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  I was never a playful kid. That was never me.
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  This doesn't apply to me, but it does.
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  If you weren't playing, something was in the way, and
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  that's the same conversation. But I was playing and I can tell
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  you exactly what it looked like and exactly what happened to it.
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  I loved Barbies, and I'd go find my mom and ask her to play with
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  me. She was always too busy.
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  There was always something from the office she had to work on,
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  and at some point I stopped asking.
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  So I played by myself. Our house had an attic that ran
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  across the whole length of my room, and I built a Barbie city
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  there. Barbie had friends, she got
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  married, she had kids. They were entire lives happening
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  in that attic. And I'd be up there for hours.
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  Nobody needed anything for me. Nobody was watching.
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  And those are the best memories of my childhood.
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  And I spent it alone. And I swore I would never do
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  that to my kids. And here we are.
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  Because I hate playing. The difference is I don't say
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  I'm too busy. That's not my sentence.
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  My sentence is I'm too tired. Which I really am.
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  But that sounds so much better coming out of my mouth.
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  And it lands on my children exactly the same way it landed
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  on me. Same thing, different word.
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  But here's the thing. I don't think a woman wakes up 1
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  morning and decides she's done having fun.
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  I think you get taught over and over that the excited version of
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  you is not welcome in the room, and eventually you stop bringing
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  her. Here's what I didn't see at the
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  time. The Barbies were the love story.
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  Barbie got married. Barbie had kids.
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  I was up in that attic running the whole thing years before I
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  ever wanted it for myself. And then I got older and I
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  didn't need dolls anymore, but I wanted it for me, and that's
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  when it stopped being cute. Nobody had a problem with me
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  playing Wedding in the Attic. They had a problem when I
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  started wanting the wedding. I watched Ever After as a
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  teenager, and that movie did something to me.
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  The way the Prince finds Cinderella and the way he kisses
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  her, That was going to be my standard.
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  That is what I wanted. And I got in my head that I was
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  going to die before I ever got my first kiss, which really is
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  the most teenage thing a person has ever worried about in the
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  history of the world. But I was genuinely scared of
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  it, so I told my mom. I told her I was afraid that I
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  was going to die and never be kissed.
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  There was no gushing. There was no oh honey, it's so
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  exciting. There was no being a girl about
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  it with me for 2 minutes. Just seriousness.
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  That was the end of that conversation.
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  And I'll be honest with you, some things have not changed and
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  you've learned something from that.
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  Not out loud. Nobody sits you down.
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  You just learned that the gushy part of you is embarrassing, so
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  you take it out of the room before anybody sees it.
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  And that's when I started to get cold.
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  It wasn't my personality, it was me putting that feeling away.
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  Then I got my first boyfriend when he was just a friend.
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  He was welcome, come on in, no problem anytime.
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  The second we started dating, he couldn't come in the house.
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  Obviously, that didn't last very long.
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  What kills me is looking is that he actually had a lot of those
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  hopeless romantic things I had been dreaming about.
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  Then I dated the man who became my first husband and my parents
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  despised it. Then I met the man I'm married
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  to now and I warned him before he ever met them.
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  I told him they are not going to be warm with you, they're going
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  to be cold. Just know that going in.
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  And I was right. It didn't matter who it was.
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  It was never about the man. Every single time somebody
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  wanted me, my mother got threatened by it.
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  I got engaged twice, and my mother never congratulated me.
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  So picture the girl in the attic building an entire city so
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  Barbie could get married, and then picture her actually
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  getting engaged and her own mother has nothing to say about
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  it. And here's what I want to name
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  for you, because I don't think most women have a word for it.
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  You didn't stop enjoying things. You started needing permission.
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  Everything you do has to justify itself.
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  Now you get an hour where nobody needs anything from you, and you
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  don't think what would be fun. You think, what should I get
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  done? And if you do the fun thing
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  anyway, the guilt consumes you. Your brain immediately says I
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  should be cleaning, I should be with my kids, I shouldn't spend
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  the money. I've got things I need to
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  finish. And underneath every single one
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  of those beliefs is a lot of us learned early and learned really
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  well, which is that doing something just for me is
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  selfish. That's the belief.
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  Play doesn't die because you got older.
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  Play dies when you decide you have to earn it first.
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  And you see your body has two settings.
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  There's handling it, and they're safe.
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  And handling it is the thing you do when you're scanning.
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  What's next? Who needs me?
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  What did I forget? Is everybody OK?
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  Is there enough money? Am I behind again?
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  And that setting is useful. That setting got a lot of us
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  through some things, but some of you have been running it since
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  you were nine years old. And then we sit around in our
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  40s wondering why we can't relax.
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  You cannot play from that setting.
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  It's not possible. But just know it's not a
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  willpower thing or a personality thing.
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  It's a wiring. Your body is not going to let
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  you be silly while it thinks somebody else has to watch the
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  door. So when a woman tells me she's
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  just not a playful person, that's not a personality.
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  That is a body nobody ever told it could stand down.
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  And the part nobody warns you about is that switching over
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  doesn't feel good. The first time, you'd think it'd
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  feel like relief, right? It doesn't.
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  It feels wrong. It feels like something's about
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  to happen. You sit down with nothing to do,
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  and your body is telling you to get up.
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  Somebody asks you what did you do all afternoon?
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  And nothing is somehow the wrong answer.
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  And you feel that within your body.
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  That's not you being bad at resting.
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  That's your body doing the exact thing it learned to do in a
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  house where staying alert was the smartest thing that could
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  possibly be. Some of that alertness you do
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  still need. If you're in a hard season right
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  now, if there's really a lot riding on you, your body isn't
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  being dramatic. It's reading the room, but
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  there's a difference between a body that's on because this week
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  is hard and a body that has been on for 30 years and doesn't
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  remember there was ever any other way to be.
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  Something else to keep in mind. We have confused being a
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  responsible adult with being a serious adult, and those are not
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  the same thing. You do have responsibilities,
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  and there are seasons where this is genuinely nothing left at the
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  end of the day. And I'm in one right now.
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  I'm tired. I'm also welcome to the 40s in
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  perimenopause. I don't feel good about my
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  weight. I am more bland that I used to
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  be, and it's not because I decided fun was beneath me, but
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  because being tense has never once paid a bill faster.
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  And I know women who are just exhausted as I am, but they
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  still dance around their kitchen.
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  So let's not pretend the tired is the whole story, because it
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  isn't. We've gotten so good at working
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  on ourselves that we forgot to live as ourselves.
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  We work out to fix the body. We read to fix the mind.
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  We listen to podcast to fix the wound.
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  We go to therapy, we journal. We work on the marriage, we work
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  on the parenting. I am in it with you.
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  But at some point, you have to stop working on yourself long
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  enough to actually enjoy being with yourself.
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  So here's a question for you. When was the last time you did
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  something for absolutely no reason other than you enjoyed
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  doing it? I'm not telling you to go be
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  playful, because that's really just another assignment and you
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  don't need one more thing to feel like you failed this week.
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  So here's what I'm asking instead.
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  Pay attention to the no, because I say no to myself before
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  anybody gets a chance to. Something sounds fun.
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  And my first thought is I don't have time.
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  I want something and I decide right away that I don't need it.
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  That's the part I'm working on. Not the playing, but the no.
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  And I'm not there yet. I'm not going to sit here and
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  tell you I figured this out. No, I'm dancing in my kitchen,
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  although I'd really like to be dancing in my kitchen.
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  But I have stopped calling it my personality and starting to look
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  at where I lost that. That little girl in the attic is
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  still in there. Nobody took her.
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  You just stop letting her out. And you're the only one who can
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  change that. Now, if something in today's
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  episode started something in you, if you're sitting there
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  realizing you can't remember the last thing you did just because
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  you liked it, that's the work I do with women.
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  The link to book a conversation is in the show notes.
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  No pressure, just a real conversation.
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  And remember, you were laughed without an explanation, but you
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  were never laughed without a purpose.
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  You were found. I'll see you next week.