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What They Mean When They Say, “It Takes a Village” · Hey Hana

0:04
SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, welcome into Hey Hanna.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Happy Wednesday, everyone.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Hope everyone is enjoying their week.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: It's a very sleepy and rainy day here in Wisconsin as I'm recording this.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: I love when it's raining in the summer.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Nothing beats it.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: The only hard part is when it doesn't happen on the weekend.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: I just need the sleepy rainy weather to line up perfectly with a day of nothingness.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: You know?
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Like when it's really sleepy and gross outside and you have to be somewhere and you have to do things and be at work and get things done, it just doesn't hit the same.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: It's like nothing calls like a long afternoon nap like gloomy summer thunderstorms.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: Ugh, they're just the best.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: So I'm really hoping that the thunderstorm happening right now will happen really all day so I can try to embrace it this evening.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: But how is everyone doing?
1:04
SPEAKER_00: There was something in last week's episode that I kept thinking about.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: And I was talking about sort of like slowing down and letting a typical day be enough.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: I was talking about that chronic feeling of not being enough.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: I keep calling it chronic not enoughness.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: That's not English, but it's what I'm using.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: And last week I was really on one.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Let me just tell you, the chronic not enoughness was oozing through my veins, and I didn't even know it as I was recording.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: And I kept thinking about it afterwards because I was like, gosh, I really feel that.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm doing that.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: I am the person that needs to take my own advice.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: And this whole weekend sort of helped me realize that maybe another part of this equation is letting people help you carry some of that weight.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: I didn't really expect that to be the thing that I was gonna talk about today, but it totally is.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: But before I dive into all of that, let's do a little life update.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: So Andy has teeth.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Big, big news, guys.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh no, really, like actually, in baby world, it is big news.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: I did not know that.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Put it on my tab.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: I there was so much crap I don't know about being a mom, especially in these early days.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: You hear your friends say it like, oh, they're teething.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: It's like everyone's teething.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you teething for like years?
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I know that.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: But when she's so itty bitty and she has these two teeth on the bottom that like broke through the gums.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: And so you could see her two bottom teeth.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: She's still exclusively breastfeeding.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: So say a prayer for me because it's not exactly smooth sailing.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: If you catch my drift.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, we're still working on that bottle though.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Really, really hoping that we've turned a corner here, but we'll see.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, I have an update next week.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: But, anyways, so yeah, bottom two teeth.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, sleep training was going so well.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: We felt like we really sort of figured it out.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: And then last week was like boom, one day she had two teeth.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: It happened overnight, and everything went out the window.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when those teeth pop out, the babies are awake, period.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: The sleep is like out the window.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: Peter and I were both so exhausted last week.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: So my mom got in, I think on like Wednesday, and I was, I felt drunk.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, that type of tired where you're so out of it, where you're like, I just felt like back to those early days of having a newborn, like those early months of having a newborn.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Sleep training has worked for us because it's allowed us to have hours that I didn't have before.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm still getting up in the middle of the night to feed her, but it's giving me chunks of time to sleep in between those wakings.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Whereas before it was sort of like hot potato.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Like she'd wake up, I'd nurse her, I put her back down, and then she was up again.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: I had to put her back down.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: It was cause, I was never laying down longer than like what felt like 90 minutes at a time.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: And teething felt a little bit like that again.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Like we were just up and down hot potato.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: And there's really nothing more humbling.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: And everyone says this.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: Everyone says this.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: You think you know, and you'll figure it out, and then it'll change again.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: And I I hate everyone.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: I really do.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Because everybody's right.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Like everybody's right about that.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: You think you figured it out.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: Peter and I are walking away thinking, like, oh my God, it took us two weeks, two solid weeks of sleep training.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: We did it.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And and we thought we had it figured out.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: And then we probably had two nights.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, I don't know what is wrong with my voice.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: We probably had two nights of just easy, breezy, beautiful, sleepy girl time.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: And then boom, teeth out the window.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, outside of Andy teething, we actually got used to it.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's funny to talk about now because I felt like it was just a few days of craziness, and then it sort of leveled out.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: So my mom, aka Lovey, came up with her best friend, who is pretty much like an aunt to me.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: Her name is Cindy, and her nieces and nephews call her Sassy, which is so funny.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: So we adopted that term.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: So Lovey and Sassy were here for the weekend hanging with Andy, and it was so fun.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: It was so good to have my immediate family here.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: There's just nothing like it.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: And raising kids without your immediate family nearby is not for the weak.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: I have Peter's family, and I'm so supremely grateful for them.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: But there's just nothing like your family.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing like your mom.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh my gosh.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: If I could do this entire podcast just as a love letter to my mom, I would because, oh, and this is what I want to talk about today is like the stress I felt and the plea from my husband to like let people help.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so bad at it.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm so bad at allowing people to help because I I constantly think I would rather take the hit.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't want someone to be uncomfortable.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't ever want to inconvenience anyone.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: I would rather just do it myself and be done.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: But by the time my mom came in, my tank was empty.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: I was getting mad at Peter for like any freaking thing.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Just in a bad mood, like that thing that you can't shake where you're just like, ugh, why am I constantly in a mood over the dumbest stuff?
6:31
SPEAKER_00: When you're not sleeping, every little thing feels enormous.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: And my issue, I think one of the things I've always struggled with the most in life is jealousy.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: I had it when I was a little girl.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: I would get really jealous of girls with like blonde hair and blue eyes.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Why?
6:50
SPEAKER_00: I have no freaking idea.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Because now I see such a power in my dark features.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: But at the time I was like, oh, I, you know, I was raised on Britney Spears, Christine Aguilera, Mandy Moore, like all Jessica Simpson.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: All of these girls had blonde hair, blue eyes.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And I just was like, oh, I'm not colorful enough.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Like I want to be, I wanted to have that look, right?
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: That was like my my earliest memory of being jealous.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And then I think when I was in a weird place in my 20s, I would get jealous of people too.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: My cousin, who's like my sister Alyssa, growing up with her, just she was like always the most beautiful girl in the room.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: She was like petite blonde hair.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: And I just always felt like this big, lanky, boring brown-haired color girl following in her footsteps.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: And I, it was a thing I actually had to work on was the jealousy.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: And it's funny, like I don't even know how I got over the jealousy.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: I think it just sort of came with maturing in life, like emotional maturity in general, and just, you know, finding your own confidence and finding your own rhythm and feeling good about yourself, right?
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, for some reason now, okay, so now knowing all of that, putting that aside, for some reason, jealousy is what comes out now in my moments of having absolutely no sleep.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, and I'm getting jealous of people who are doing things and experiencing things that I can't because I feel tethered to my baby at the moment.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: And I use the word tethered because that is the feeling specifically only when I'm lacking sleep.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: When I have sleep, I'm like, what a privilege.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, what an honor to sit home and do this with my baby.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: It's so insane how your brain will just trick itself because it has no energy whatsoever.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I found myself getting jealous of my husband.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, he works at a gym.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: So obviously he sneaks in a workout most days between all of his stuff.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And like he was telling me about his workout, and I was like, oh, I haven't been in the gym all week.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: And I find myself getting so stressed over this little tiny spark of jealousy.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: It's that thing of like suddenly everything feels enormous.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Like I cannot carry the weight of my entire life.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: And everything comes pouring in of like all the stuff that I'm not up to date on.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm behind on this, I haven't finished that, I have to do that.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: And I can't even communicate it because I'm just like walking around with this cloud over my head.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Coincidentally, last week before my mom arrived, I would even have to like escape to a corner of a room because I was so stressed.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Telling myself to breathe for a minute, so I could reset my nervous system in a way.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: Do you guys ever feel like that though?
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Like nothing terrible has happened, nothing bad has happened whatsoever.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: But for some reason, my lack of energy and my lack of sleep has just made my nervous system like full at max capacity.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Like I am just pouring over and I can't even take anything else.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Like last week, someone could have told me that they ate the best ice cream in the world, and I would have been like, ugh, that is so not fair.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: I can't eat ice cream right now, guys.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: By the way, side note, I can't eat ice cream right now because I've been doing a dairy-free diet for my baby because she has had really bad experiences when I eat too much dairy.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: So I've just eliminated it altogether.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: It was a whole thing.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: She has a really hard time digesting dairy, so I just don't eat it anymore.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's like the dumbest thing.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, Hannah, there are other options out there like relax.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to eat ice cream.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: There's a million other things I can eat to get my sweet treat fixed.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: And I can even find some ice cream.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: There's there's plenty of non-dairy ice cream.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Like just the dumbest little things.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: I was finding myself getting just like, ugh, woe is me over.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: I hate that.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: I could not shake that.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: But it's such an odd feeling.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: And I wish I could be like, oh yeah, I wasn't sleeping, so I was like, you know, catching up on TV.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I haven't even done like a full proper TV recap.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: But I feel like I couldn't even watch anything because I'm just couldn't click my brain off of this cycle.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: This negative cycle.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: And quite frankly, I've never been a negative person.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Like I don't ever see myself as a negative person.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm always, you know, my cup is half full type personality.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm always looking at the optimistic side of things.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, really, I know that sounds cheesy, but I don't know.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: I've always been known as like a happy Hannah.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: And so for me to just be like womp, womp, womp about the tiniest little things these days, I just last week I was like, who am I?
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Like, what am I doing?
11:47
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, Lovey and Sassy secretly came to my rescue, having no idea how much I needed them.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: They were coming for a visit just to come.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: And it was those little moments that brought me back to life.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: Holding Andy while I ran to the bathroom, helping me cook dinner.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, like saying, uh, Sassy made us a few loaves of sourdough.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: She taught me a new sourdough recipe.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: We actually tried a gluten-free one, like having someone to do that with in the kitchen, coming downstairs and seeing that my mom had already made coffee, starting laundry and then forgetting about it, and my mom actually folding it for me and bringing it up the stairs.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Just having another adult, let alone two women who I love and admire in the house during the day, I just didn't realize how much I needed those little tiny breaks.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you guys have ever had those feelings of being so emotionally drained that it almost takes you a day or two to come out of it.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Like when they got here, I still I felt like I was still in such a mood.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: And I kept wanting to be like, no, I got it.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm gonna do it.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, seriously, it's okay, let me do it.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: And I had to remind myself, like, no, no, no, they're here, they want to help.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, my mom wants to spend time with her granddaughter.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so for example, like every afternoon I do a contact nap with Andy.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: She just will not allow me to put her down for this nap.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: And it's so important that she gets this one last nap of the day.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: The only way I can really get it done is if I'm holding her.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: And there was this one day where I felt like I just had so much work to do on my computer.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: I there were things around the house.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: I just felt like disorganized.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: My mom is like, Hannah, let me take her.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: But I'm like, no, no, I can't give her to you when she's already asleep on me.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: She's not gonna stay asleep.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't get it.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm like losing my mind.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: My mom's like, Hannah's just pass her to me.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: I'll make I'll make sure I rock her back to sleep.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Lo and behold, I, if I like release a little bit and just take a breath, I'm like, Hannah, just try it.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: I pass the baby to her.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she woke up for a minute, but like, aha, she went back to sleep.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: She went back to sleep.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: And all of this just got me thinking because really I've always heard people say, it takes a village.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And I don't, you know, you hear that all the time.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: But it's like when you're in it.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: I honestly need to shake myself sometimes and be like, why is accepting help so uncomfortable?
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Like, seriously.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: Why is my first instinct to always be like, no, no, no, I've got it.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about it.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Let me do it.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: Let me do it.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, let me do it.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I do that with the intention of being like, oh, I hope that they say, no, no, let me, let me.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, why do I do that?
14:35
SPEAKER_00: So when I'm being honest with myself, like when I'm being totally honest with myself, is when I'm like, oh no, actually, I would love the help.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: And it took me a few days to be like, okay, here, can you do this?
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Can you, can you help me with that?
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Or I'm gonna run downstairs and finish this.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Can you grab that?
14:49
SPEAKER_00: It's funny, Peter always talks about the multi-generational living and how so for so many years, people grew up living with their grandparents.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Like grandparents move in, and aunts and uncles live there with their nieces and nephews and with the grandkids and their kids.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: And you hear about those stories.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: And I actually grew up living with my grandparents at one point.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: They lived in the house with us.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: You hear about that stuff, but it's so not common anymore.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Part of me wishes that was more normal because it makes sense on why everyone says it takes a village.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I kept asking this when my mom was here.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, she'd offer to hold Andy while I showered, and my immediate response was, no, no, it's okay.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: I'll put her in this little thing that I put her in when I'm when I take a quick shower.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: It's like I can, I can watch her from the shower.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: And why?
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Why would I do that?
15:35
SPEAKER_00: It's my mom.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: She was an inconvenience.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: She wasn't doing me a favor she didn't want to do, you know, she wanted to hold her granddaughter.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: She wanted to help.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: And I was over here just making it hard for zero reason, only because I was stressed, and that was my way of handling my stress.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I found myself doing that.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Like I want to independently be able to do everything.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: But I think sometimes I have to remember that independence is different from doing everything ourselves.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the motto is if I can physically do it, then I should do it.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: That's the motto that lives in my head sometimes.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: And I don't feel like that's life.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's social media.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's like that crap hustle culture that I felt like existed, you know, in my 20s.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: 2016 was like peak hustle culture.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's just like adulthood.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: But I've somehow convinced myself that being capable, like physically capable of doing something, means that I don't need anyone else to do it.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: And then when someone does offer me help, I immediately start thinking about them, like how I don't want to inconvenience them and I don't want them to feel like they have to do this, and I don't want them to feel like they're now stuck because they need to do this because they need to help me and I can't do it.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: Like poor Hannah, she needs help.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: It's so ridiculous the gymnastics my brain does during this entire thing.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Somebody asked if they can help with one thing, and my brain is over here doing some results.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, truly.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I don't even know where I am right now.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: I just started talking.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I normally ease into the conversation a little bit more, and I just jumped right in today.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about this in the most unorganized way.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: So excuse my brain rant, but somewhere on like day two of my mom arriving, I felt like it started to feel like such a relief.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Another thing I've had a hard time with is allowing myself to do anything that's not productive while the baby is actually sleeping.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Moms know once that baby goes down, it's like I become a freaking helicopter.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: I am running around doing a million things because these are all the things I have the opportunity to do while I have two free hands.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: And I know in the afternoon she needs a contact nap, my two hands are not going to be available to me until that baby goes to sleep at seven o'clock.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it's like two o'clock.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And I need to start getting dinner ready because that's my only window of opportunity to do that.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Like this is just where my brain is.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm always thinking 11 steps ahead of what I can do and how I can utilize my time.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: And when you have company, like when you have friends come over, family come over, you're like, wait a minute, I can, I can just sit.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: What a remarkable thought.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, I can actually just relax in this 45 minutes and not feel so much pressure to do every stupid thing in my head.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: And also that thing of not only relying on myself for Andy's cues.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: And you talk so much about the village and everybody has a part.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Like Peter's family, my family.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: There's those moments in your life where you feel like you need an off switch and you can't even articulate that you need an off switch because you're so running on fumes that you can't even like verbalize or begin to understand that you need a little bit of help.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: But it's so hard because like finding the people that you feel like you can be off with takes time and energy.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you don't have that energy to even do that.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
19:11
SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of really great friends in the Midwest since moving here.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: I really do.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: I love the people here.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, nothing beats my very best girlfriends from home who some have kids, some don't, some are married, some are not.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: And they just, we all just get it.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: It's like an unspoken thing about each other.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: We all just speak each other's languages really, really well.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: And in these moments where I'm like so stressed, it almost takes someone from your inner circle to come in and knock you out of it, to be like, hey, take a beat.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: If you zoom out, everything is really great.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Stop zooming in on the stupid, unnecessary crap.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Because if you do, your life is just gonna fly by before you know it.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I get so into the weeds of everything I need to do that day and the things that I didn't do and the things that are still on my to-do list, and I'll get so frustrated that I have to sit there for 45 minutes while she naps, and I can't accomplish any of those things that I feel a little bit like a failure and I feel a little bit negative going into the next day.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: And then it just builds and builds and builds.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it took my mom, Lovey, and her best friend Sassy, to come help me help pull me out of this weird lull.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: They had no idea they even did this, by the way.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm gonna send my mom this podcast this week and she's gonna be like, what are you talking about?
20:32
SPEAKER_00: But I think I I was just deep in thought about this this past week because it's a reminder to allow yourself to give in to the village in any season you're in.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: I know that the phrase is it takes a village to raise a baby, blah, blah, blah.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: If you're not raising a child, you're still working through a certain season, right?
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Whatever that season is, it takes a village.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: It takes your people, it takes new friends, old friends, new family, old family, every level of it to get you to feel like you can balance it all.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: Do you guys ever have those moments where you go call one of your old friends on a walk or on a car ride, and you just click right into a really ridiculous conversation.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: You don't even catch up about like, what are you doing this weekend?
21:19
SPEAKER_00: What did how's this?
21:20
SPEAKER_00: How's that?
21:21
SPEAKER_00: You just start talking about something completely unconventional and sort of ridiculous.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And then you're both on this tangent about that thing, and it's like you're speaking your own language.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's the thing that sort of weirdly fills your cup in those moments of like absolute stress that nobody else can do.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: That realization, so that right there, finding that and utilizing that this weekend is what helped pull me out of a bit of an emotional hole.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, like let me just talk about my mom for a second because I really don't do this enough out loud.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: My mom is truly one of those.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: People who changes the temperature of a room in the best way.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: She's not fixing everything, she's not taking it over.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: She's just like, she just has this presence where everything is warmer because she's around.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: She wants to help with everything and she gives her opinion.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And I actually love that she does that.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, my Italian family will never not give their opinion.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: And it's one of my favorite things.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Um but she doesn't push it and she laughs through everything.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: And she allows me to just turn off.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: I can't explain it.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: I've never realized how critical it is to have those people, those people that you don't need to filter with, those people you don't need to think about what you're saying in front of them with the people who you could roll out of bed and then roll in a pile of dirt and then have your hair in a messy bun for four days and still answer the door.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Welcome them in and have absolutely no reaction to how you look or feel.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you guys are anything like me, but sometimes you want to look nice when people come over and then you're stuck in that cycle of like you're trying to make yourself look presentable and then it almost makes you feel worse, you know?
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Whereas there's those people in your life where you're like, whatever I look like doesn't matter.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: They don't care.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: But I just realizing how important I don't even know what the beginning of my sentence was.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: I was just trying to say how important it is to have all of those people around you in different seasons of life, in those really stressful moments of life.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't even want to call them seasons because they're so short.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: And of course, sometimes they're longer seasons of feeling really strung out.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: But I'm talking about those random weeks or those random months where you just like cannot come up for air.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: I think it takes a village, gets thrown around so much in parenting content.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: It's like kind of lost its meaning to me.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, everyone just like sort of uses it as a caption under a cute picture.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: But this weekend I feel like I saw this sort of real, unglamorous version of it.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: It's not a village of people cheering you on from a distance, and you're like, look at what we did this week, and look at we made the team this week.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, no.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: It's someone walking into your kitchen, just knowing what you need without having to ask.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to be polite.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: All of that.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: That's really what I want for my own kids someday.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, not just this like presence, but the whole ecosystem of people who love them and show up for them and do the dishes and tell them to go upstairs and shower or lie down and take a nap or something like that.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: So wow, this just ended up being like a full freaking rant.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for riding along with me in this true yap session.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: This is just my subconscious on a roller coaster.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: I guess it's just a reminder to myself like it's not a big emotional, unraveling story to tell all the time.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, nobody was in crisis, nothing crazy happened, nothing was actually wrong ever.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, it was just a hard week where I was really in my head because I had lack of sleep.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: And everything was made so much softer by people just showing up.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I just think that that's actually the most useful story I could tell from my week.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Like that you don't have to be drowning to deserve help.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes you don't even realize that you need help because you don't feel like you're drowning.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: You're like, no, no, I know I have this and I'm gonna do that, and I'm gonna sleep tonight or I'm gonna sleep tomorrow night.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: Like you're just so in the thick of your own routine that you don't even realize how much help could actually help you.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: It's like I have to remember, I don't need a, I don't need all of these reasons why it's okay to let someone come over and help.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I just need to turn my brain off and let someone else do it, even if it's out of the normal way that I would do things and just let go of it all.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Like that's the village, you know?
26:09
SPEAKER_00: It's not a rescue team.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: It's just people who show up on a random Tuesday and make everything a little bit lighter for you.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, if there's a version of this happening in your life, like maybe it's a parent like me, maybe it's a friend, a family member, a cousin, a neighbor, a coworker who has been wanting to do something for you and has been in insisting, let me help with this or let me do that, or da-da-da-da-da.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: This is my plea to you.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Like, let them do it, truly.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: This is your sign.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Let them actually jump in and help next time.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Instead of doing the whole, like, no, no, I got it.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: No, let me do it.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: No, it's okay.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Cause you don't have to do that thing right now.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: You really don't.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, take a beat.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: I always say this.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: I want to just exist.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to be accomplishing something right now.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Remind yourself you don't need to be accomplishing something.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to be like the superhero, the superhero mom doing everything perfectly for everyone.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Cause this is how I feel right now.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: Or the superhero employee, the superhero school teacher, like whatever it is.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Just like let the people closest to you come in and help.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I guess this is what we talked about in this episode.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: My oh my.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: This became just like a total rant.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Anyways, well, I'm just gonna keep it at that for this week.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: That is the episode.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: Go let someone help you with something small this week and let your nervous system come down.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Release control, people.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: That's what I gotta tell myself.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: It's a whole practice, you know.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Go call your mom, call your best friend from home, knock on your neighbor's door, that person that sort of fills your cup a little bit.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Just let them do it.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, let them empty the dishwasher.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Let them bring you a jar of pickled onions.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: This is a shout out to my mother-in-law because she's the best at making pickled onions.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: She brings them to me all the time.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, let the let the people in your life just do the thing.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, thank you guys so much for listening.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: If you listen this far, I can't thank you enough.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: I feel free to always message me, DM me, tell me about the last time someone helped you.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: You actually let them help you.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: Who do you wish showed up more?
28:14
SPEAKER_00: All of it.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear about your guys' lives and how we're all just do it little by little every day.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: But I hope everyone has a great week and I'll talk to you next week.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.