Latest / You're Not Too Much / What If This Is It?

Transcript

What If This Is It? · You're Not Too Much

• 0:00
  They make me feel like my insides are collapsing onto themselves.
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  There's this constant balancing act of
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  your needs as a human and your guilt as a parent.
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  You feel like you're gonna be failing one of them at all times.
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  All right, here we go. I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record. Cause that feels right.
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  Okay, I'm pressing record. Boop. Hi,
• 0:27
  everybody. I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different
• 0:30
  Not Broke is our podcast on exactly that.
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  That there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken. And
• 0:37
  the reality is you're just different. And that's fine. I'm sure I've
• 0:41
  said this before a number of times, but the last year has been
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  chaotic and exhausting and
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  a thousand other things that have left me frequently
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  feeling like my fuse is very short.
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  I always try to be really, really
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  aware of what my kids are getting off of me,
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  kind of vibe wise. If you had told me before we had
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  children that Kyle Howard would be the heavy and the
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  disciplinarian and that I would be the
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  laid back, permissive parent, I would have laughed in your face.
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  I would have told you that you were bonkers. And then these
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  kids were born and I became fully useless at discipline.
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  I am absolutely worthless when it comes to enforcing the
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  rules. The only rule that I'm really good at is bedtime. Kyle
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  Howard is terrible at bedtime because he doesn't understand
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  clocks in any way, shape or form. He has never met a
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  clock that he agrees with, whereas I only understand clocks. And
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  I am like a walking one. And so I'm good at bedtime. He's not.
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  But other than that, like, these kids are mouthy and
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  disrespectful. And I'm like, that was great. And he was like, you shouldn't let them
• 1:58
  talk to you like that. And I'm like, why not? I love it.
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  My youngest cries and is clearly definitely a hundred percent
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  trying to manipulate me. And I am totally on board for it.
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  And the alternative is let her cry. And my
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  response is, come here, baby, I need to hug you and
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  cuddle you. Because even though I know you're being manipulative, I still want to hug
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  you because you're so cute. So anyway, life is funny in that way
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  that there's no planet where my husband was supposed to be
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  the heavy. That is not the way we live our lives. And yet here I
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  am being 97% useless when it comes to
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  discipline because I just want to let them live and do what they want and
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  figure things out. And apparently that's not what you're supposed to do with children. And
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  I think that's ridiculous. There is this very
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  real aspect of parenting that is
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  the constant overstimulation of being a
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  parent. And it does not matter how many
• 2:56
  children you have, their existences
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  are overstimulating. And if you are a person like me
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  who is prone to overstimulation, it can be really
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  overwhelming at times. And again, for the most part,
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  I try to deal with it. And my kids know. My kids know that if,
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  like, four people are talking at once, you're not getting an answer out of me.
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  I can't figure out who's saying what and when. And so I'll
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  say, like, stop, guys. One person. Pick one person.
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  They also kind of experience the same kind of sensory overload at times. And so
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  they get it. And I don't expect them to fix things
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  for me, but I do expect that if they need something,
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  that we will kind of work together to figure out how to communicate it in
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  a way that works for both of our brains. And that's a constantly
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  evolving process. But after the year we've had,
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  my proximity to overstimulation is shorter
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  or closer than it's ever been, ever.
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  There are little teeny, tiny things that they do that
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  are completely imperceptible to other people in the world,
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  completely imperceptible to anybody who is not me,
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  that make me feel like I am being
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  crushed inside. They make me feel like my insides are collapsing
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  onto themselves. And I have to remember, and I have
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  remind myself all the time, that just because this
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  feels like absolute chaos to me internally does not mean I have to communicate
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  it to them that way. And I can very politely ask them to
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  stop doing those things, even though inside
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  I feel like I am being absolutely freaking
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  crushed. Absolutely crushed. And it's very,
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  very simple, tiny things that I think probably never would have
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  bothered me before, but I'm just in this phase
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  of my life that we're working through a lot, and
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  there's so much stress and there's so much overwhelm. So I'll
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  give you an example. My kids are always in my office coloring. And that's not
• 5:00
  a complaint. I love it. I even have a little station set up for them.
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  I like to buy pens, but I am a picky
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  diva when it comes to pens. So if you show me
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  a pack of colorful pens, the reality is I'm probably gonna buy it
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  because I love it and I wanna try them. But I will also try them
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  one time before being like, well, these are Trash and never touch them again.
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  So I put them in a pile. Like there's a little organizer on that side
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  of my desk and my kids can come in and use them whenever they want.
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  And I print out coloring pages for them and they can use them and it's
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  great. And I get to have my colorful sets of pens so they come in
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  and they color next to me like somewhat constantly. And that's fine and I
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  love it. And my 7 year old, I say that
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  her butt has magnets in it because it
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  is immediately drawn to the nearest adult and she
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  has to be right on top of you all the time. Not
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  nearest adult in like strangers. In fact, she's the one who is
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  very stranger averse. Whereas my 9 year old is like,
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  everybody's my friend. And so she will come and she'll start
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  across the room and then slowly creep her way until she is
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  like right on top of me. And she'll do this thing where she is just
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  putting the tiniest amount of pressure on my desk chair
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  so that I can't move it and fidget freely.
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  And it is like being trapped in a vice as far as my
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  brain is concerned. Literally nobody else in the world would
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  notice that this is happening. But I notice.
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  And it makes me feel like I have lost all function in my body
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  and that I can't move freely and I hate it. And so
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  I have to translate that from this is the
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  worst thing that has ever happened to me. Which is not. It's not. But
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  that's what it feels like in that moment to hey, can you not
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  lean on my chair? To which she always says, oh, sorry and
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  bounces away and everything's fine. And then five minutes later she does it again and
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  I have to go, hey, can you not lean on my chair? Hey,
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  remember what I said like 2 minutes ago when I was like, hey, stop leaning
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  on my chair. And every time it's like, oh, sorry. Then she bounces back to
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  where she's supposed to be. It really does feel awful internally,
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  even though it is so small and so simple. It
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  is something that for whatever reason, the
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  fuse that is so short right now is lit by
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  that. It also happens when she, like, my kids do this all the time.
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  And this is really kind of the thing I wanted to address.
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  Do you remember when the Barbie movie came out and Ken said
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  my job is beach? Like I say,
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  my job is chair because as far as my children
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  are concerned, I am a chair. If they see
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  me, they sit on me. And that for the most part, I love It.
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  It's amazing and it's wonderful. But also, there
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  is something very, very
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  stressful about a small human
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  wedging herself onto your lap when she was not invited
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  between your lap and your desk and
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  having to navigate. And I'm like, why is your butt on me?
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  Why is the immediate response that your butt needs to be on me?
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  Because all of a sudden I can't move around, I can't fidget, I can't. And
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  I've got. I can't use my hands, I can't use my computer. There's a butt
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  on me. And a lot of times I will say, hey, can you go stand
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  over there? And of course they'll do it. Sometimes they look at me and say,
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  no, but it's like, very deliberate. It's like very
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  much I know this is bothering you. And also, I'm
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  making the conscious choice that I'm going to bother you. And that's like.
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  I get that. I do understand that, and that's mostly funny.
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  But for the most part, they just get up and move away. But then
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  whether it's because, you know, they're doing something that
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  feels constricting and making me feel like I can't move my body
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  freely, which is really hard for me, or they're sitting on
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  me and I'm not ready for that particular stimuli, right then
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  they will absolutely move away. Correct it. No
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  argument. And the next part of it is that I
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  immediately feel guilty for two reasons. One, I feel guilty
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  that their touch or their closeness could in
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  any way make me feel so negative, which is a function of my
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  brain and not really a function of anything that they're doing. But then
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  there's that part of the parent brain that turns on
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  when you're like, I'm asking her to get off my lap,
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  and someday she's not gonna wanna sit on my lap anymore. And I'm gonna regret
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  this. I'm gonna regret, like, not
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  soaking up every single second of having her on my lap.
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  But also, I can't make decisions about things based
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  on guilt. There are times where I need space and
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  the overstimulation is too much. But that doesn't make the
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  guilt go away. It doesn't make you feel less guilty about
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  making a conscious choice to not spend time being showered with the
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  affection that someday your kids. Not even that they're not going to give you, but,
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  like, there's going to be a day where my kid is not going to walk
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  into my office and immediately climb on my lap because she's too grown up or
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  she thinks she's too cool for it or her friends are around or whatever.
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  And that's going to be devastating in its own way.
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  This is 1000% the way that parents torture
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  ourselves all the time. Like making a
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  decision for yourself, protecting your peace, deciding
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  to set a boundary, even if it's not a critically important
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  boundary, the immediate balance to
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  that is. But what if this is the last time?
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  What if we don't ever get to do this again? Someday
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  they're not going to love this. Nobody told me
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  that someday you're going to pop out a kid
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  and every decision from there forward is going to
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  be about how you're failing them. And there are the
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  times that you fail them less, and there are the times that you
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  fail them more. But there are very rarely times
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  when you're like, I'm getting this right
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  at all. And right now I'm in a phase where
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  my brain, my
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  stress level, the things that we have recovered from, the things that we're still
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  recovering from, require me to have a whole lot
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  of grace for myself and for the people around me. Myself especially.
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  I'm horrible at giving myself grace and
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  balancing it with this constant
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  feeling. Like, the areas where I
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  have to assert that there is something that I need are
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  going to be places that I might regret someday
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  because of this constant parental guilt that
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  is crushing all the time. Even when you're doing things amazingly right
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  again, like, it never feels like you're crushing it. It always feels like you are
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  doing things the least bad. Like, I joke a lot about things that
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  my kids do that are as good as a DNA test, where I feel like,
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  oh, I've nailed this. Either I've nailed this, or like, oh, I'm sorry I made
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  you that way. But usually they're funny. But there was one
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  situation, the one time in the
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  almost 10 years that I've been a parent that I was certain I
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  had done something right. Absolutely certain I had done something right. We
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  were at a relative's house, and my
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  kids mouth off to me all the time, and it doesn't bother me. They talk
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  back to me constantly. We joke like that all the time. They're funny as
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  hell. They're sarcastic as hell. My oldest has a
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  pun game that rivals the best, most advanced
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  linguists in the world. Her pun game is better.
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  And so I love it when they banter with me. I love it when they
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  argue with me. I love it when they say silly stuff. And they also, like,
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  I can also turn it off when I need to and be like, hey, not
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  the time. And they'll usually back off, but for the most part, like there's nothing
• 13:03
  off limits. They can say whatever they want. And so we were at a
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  holiday meal or something and my kid said something
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  sassy to me and I like raised one eyebrow and laughed because I thought
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  it was funny. And the family member who was sitting at the table
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  looked at her and said, you better watch it or she's going to
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  give you a fat lip. And I was so
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  shocked. And my kid looks at them and says,
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  what's a fat lip? And they say it means
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  she's going to hit you in the mouth for being disrespectful. And without
• 13:37
  missing a beat, my oldest, very
• 13:40
  genuinely and without concern, looked at them and said,
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  she's my mom, she would never hit me. And I was
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  ready to jump in. I was ready to say, like, how in a
• 13:52
  million years could you talk to my kid like that? How could you suggest that
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  to my kid? That is not what we do in our house. And before I
• 13:59
  even had the chance, my then nine year old said,
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  she's my mom, she would never hit me. And it was like
• 14:08
  watching something heal. Generations and generations of
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  generational trauma, just like resolve in
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  this little 45 pound body. That was a three minute period
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  in 10 years of parenting, the only time that I
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  ever felt that I actually got it right. And so
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  I keep that moment with me forever. Because if
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  the only thing I ever do right is to give them
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  a space safe enough where they can say anything, do anything,
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  bring anything, and know that there's no violent
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  reprisal on the other side, no terrifying reprisal on the
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  other side, everything else is awash.
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  But even though I've had the kind of tangible proof of that that
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  most people would die for, most parents at least,
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  I still spend so much time balancing
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  my own needs, my own overwhelm, my own overstimulation,
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  which is something I struggle with all the time. And my desire
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  to keep my kids close, and my general
• 15:13
  concern about the fact that someday they're not going to be my tiny babies
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  anymore, even though they're already not tiny, which is rude, nobody told them they were
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  allowed to do that. There's this constant balancing
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  act of your needs as a human
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  and your guilt as a parent, and you feel
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  like you're going to be failing one of them at all times. I don't have
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  a solution for that, except to acknowledge the fact that it exists,
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  acknowledge the fact that my kids are healthy and well taken care of and
• 15:43
  have everything they need in this life and most of the things that they want.
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  And that you don't stop being a parent when things are hard,
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  but you do sometimes become a parent who struggles with specific things
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  when things are hard. And that's not a reflection on you as a
• 16:00
  parent, but it is something that you have to
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  pay attention to and be mindful of. One, because you
• 16:07
  don't want that thing to become your kid's responsibility, but two, because
• 16:12
  you deserve grace in that situation. And
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  sometimes that means that little
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  imperceptible things that don't mean anything to anyone else are
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  really gonna bother you. And one,
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  you have to find a way to cope with it. But two,
• 16:30
  deciding that protecting your peace in
• 16:33
  those situations and giving yourself some sense of calm and
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  resolve in something that makes you feel
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  chaotic even though it's so tiny, and that you're
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  not damaging your relationship with your kids by doing it.
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  And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's
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  small talk. I don't know if this is even a question or just me admitting
• 16:59
  something out loud for the first time. I'm good at my job,
• 17:02
  like, objectively good, but I still feel like I'm one mistake away
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  from being found out. Is there a point where imposter syndrome
• 17:10
  actually shuts up, or do you just learn to live with the
• 17:13
  noise? That's a really good question. And I say this as
• 17:17
  somebody who knows your imposter syndrome is full of shit and should
• 17:21
  go get bent. And the part of your brain that
• 17:26
  tells you that you can't do those things is either
• 17:30
  parroting something that it's never actually been told or
• 17:34
  repeating things that have been told to it by people who
• 17:38
  are not good sources of information anyway. I think you will go through
• 17:42
  phases in your life where you're more secure in where you are, and
• 17:46
  whether that completely manifests as imposter syndrome going
• 17:49
  away or whether it's more likely that it's this
• 17:53
  naggy voice at the back of your head that you have learned to work through
• 17:57
  and ignore. I can't exactly promise the realities of that, but
• 18:01
  it's one of those things, right? In my experience, I'm sure there are people
• 18:05
  who have kicked their imposter syndrome. And I really, really encourage
• 18:09
  everyone who is struggling with imposter syndrome to look at
• 18:12
  their nearest mediocre white male and see if he's
• 18:16
  struggling with imposter syndrome, because I guarantee you, he's
• 18:20
  not. The career trajectory of the mediocre white
• 18:23
  male does not have the same trappings of
• 18:27
  imposter syndrome than it does for basically everybody else. And
• 18:30
  so we say this a lot, but, you know, approach everything as
• 18:34
  if you were a mediocre white male. Because he is not concerned about being
• 18:38
  ill prepared for something he's not. He has been taught
• 18:41
  always that every role was made for him and that
• 18:45
  everybody's lucky to have him in every space that he's in. And he just doesn't
• 18:48
  worry about it. I'm not talking about anybody specific, to be clear. I'm talking about
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  this kind of mythical figure. Not mythical. He really exists in a lot
• 18:55
  of different forms, but they get to
• 18:58
  benefit from the
• 19:02
  unfettered joy of failing up. You know, these are the people who
• 19:06
  do a really bad job at something. And the solution
• 19:09
  from corporate is to promote them
• 19:13
  instead of fire them. Well, we need to get him out of that role,
• 19:17
  so we're gonna promote him instead of actually dealing with
• 19:21
  the corporate internal issues. So that's not who you need to aspire to
• 19:24
  because you're already better than that. That kind of
• 19:28
  inexplicable self perception is what we need
• 19:31
  to aspire to, even though in your case it's explicable because you
• 19:35
  really are that magical and wonderful. That
• 19:39
  said, I will guess there are people in this
• 19:43
  world who have improved from imposter syndrome
• 19:46
  or not had it plague them ever again when they
• 19:50
  have some sort of light bulb. But I think in general, being
• 19:54
  a person who is self aware and
• 19:58
  not overly impressed with yourself means that there are
• 20:02
  times where you feel like a toddler in a room of postdocs.
• 20:06
  And that is just the reality of
• 20:11
  being a person who may be super
• 20:14
  confident in your skills in some places, but not in everything.
• 20:19
  I can't promise that it will go away entirely. I can promise
• 20:22
  that you can start retraining your brain in ways that
• 20:26
  make the bouts of it shorter, that make them less paralyzing,
• 20:30
  that make you get closer to feeling
• 20:34
  like you can do it scared. Like if it's
• 20:37
  fear that's standing in your way, you can do it scared. Because remember,
• 20:41
  if you're not doing something because you're worried that someone's going to tell you
• 20:45
  no, you're doing that for them. So you might as
• 20:49
  well do it and just let them tell you no. There's a good chance
• 20:52
  they might actually tell you yes. Instead, let them surprise you, even
• 20:56
  though nobody else is survi is surprised because everybody knew that you would,
• 21:00
  that you were a shoo in or that you were fully capable, or that it
• 21:04
  was made for you. So will there be a
• 21:08
  day that imposter syndrome is not a thing for you anymore?
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  Maybe. Is it more likely that you learn how to
• 21:15
  train it out of your kind of every day so that it's not bothering you
• 21:18
  all the time? Probably. And are there
• 21:22
  still seasons of life where you get a
• 21:25
  gut punch from something and all of a sudden you're questioning
• 21:29
  your capabilities and you know what you can do and how it has the
• 21:33
  potential to interfere with whatever opportunities in front of you?
• 21:36
  Absolutely. I will say, like
• 21:40
  February me of this year versus
• 21:44
  October me of this year were totally different people.
• 21:47
  One of them, and I won't tell you which one, but one of them
• 21:51
  was ready to take over the world. And one of them was wondering
• 21:55
  why anybody even let me own a
• 21:58
  company. And I say that as the person who tells
• 22:02
  people multiple times a week that that's just their imposter syndrome
• 22:06
  talking and they need to tell them to tell imposter syndrome to shove it. Those
• 22:09
  two things can exist. They can both exist in your body. And you may very
• 22:13
  well find that as seasons change, so does
• 22:16
  your confidence level. And that's not only human, but completely expected.
• 22:21
  And again, the only people who don't have
• 22:24
  imposter syndrome, the only people who don't have imposter syndrome
• 22:28
  are the ones who should have imposter syndrome.
• 22:32
  Everybody else has probably worked their way there. I'm not sure if
• 22:36
  we've talked about this before, but
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  imposter syndrome is based on a
• 22:43
  whole lot of arrogance, but not arrogance in the
• 22:47
  way that you're thinking. Right. So we think
• 22:51
  that, you know, I must be saying that you're so impressed with yourself.
• 22:54
  I know you're not. I know that's not what drives imposter syndrome,
• 22:58
  but it is not possible that every
• 23:02
  person in your life who has been part
• 23:05
  of your career up till now has been wrong about
• 23:09
  you in such a way that you were able to repeatedly
• 23:13
  fail into where you are. It's not possible.
• 23:18
  If you got where you are, you got there because you did the work,
• 23:21
  you put in, the time, you developed the relationships, you did all of
• 23:25
  those things. It is so self centered to think
• 23:29
  that the universe likes you so much that
• 23:33
  it let you fail repeatedly to get where
• 23:37
  you are. It's not possible. You have not only been
• 23:41
  surrounded by people who are unsmart and so bad
• 23:44
  at what they do that they didn't realize that you were also
• 23:48
  bad at what you do. It's not possible. It's not how it
• 23:52
  works. You are a
• 23:56
  magical, wonderful,
• 23:59
  unicorn person who deserves
• 24:03
  every ounce of everything that you get and you
• 24:07
  did not repeatedly fail to get there. That said,
• 24:11
  I know you don't believe any of it. If you need to hear that
• 24:15
  again at some time, let me know. I gotcha. Thanks for being here,
• 24:19
  guys. Have a good day. Love you. Mean it.
• 24:26
  I just want to point something out before I lose my ever
• 24:30
  loving shit. Which is close.
• 24:34
  It is 12:12 Eastern Time
• 24:39
  on a Tuesday. What do we
• 24:42
  do every Tuesday? That I have told this man who
• 24:46
  inhabits my house. That we do every Tuesday.
• 24:50
  Tell me how a contractor just walked up on my goddamn porch.
• 24:55
  I'm gonna hurl this man out the window if this person makes noise. And I'm
• 24:58
  not gonna be nice about it this time. I'm gonna walk out and be like,
• 25:00
  stop it. It is Tuesday. I'm gonna get
• 25:04
  a cheap shock machine is what I'm gonna get. I'm gonna attach it to
• 25:07
  him. How is it every
• 25:11
  motherfucking Tuesday? Never any other
• 25:15
  day of the week.