Conscious Success Co (00:56)
Hey friends, welcome back. So I'm recording this episode at 34 weeks pregnant, but by the time you're hearing it, I will either be 41 weeks pregnant, please for the love of God, let that not be the case, or I will be early in the newborn haze. But today I made a decision that totally went against what I'd planned for this podcast, and that is that I'm going to be pausing the podcast for the months of July and August while I'm on maternity leave.
And my original plan, which I had every intention of keeping until this very morning, was to batch record enough episodes in advance that I could release them consistently every week all the way through my three-month maternity leave. And I thought I'd just front end the effort, and then I'd sail off onto my mat leave without a care in the world and be able to really fully soak up that time with baby until I returned to work in September. But.
There was one thing about this that I totally overlooked or was overly optimistic about when I made this plan. And that is how absolutely draining the second half of one's third trimester can be. I don't know if you had a baby, but if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. And look, I've been pregnant and gone through all of this before. I actually stopped working at 34 weeks last time because I was feeling so big and so uncomfortable and my sleep was so broken. I was not.
feeling energized or creative or truly able to keep working. Yet I had convinced myself that things would be so different this time around because I'm only carrying one baby after all, not twins. And so I was really optimistic that I could take client calls essentially up until my due date and despite having a full client load and it already taking quite a bit of time and creative capacity to consistently release one podcast episode a week for you all, I thought to myself, okay, well.
I'll just batch three episodes week. Instead of one, it will be totally fine. And I'm honestly kind of like laughing at myself as I say this out loud because over the last few weeks, I have felt just as large and in charge as before. My sleep is just as fragmented. My energy and my creative capacity feel just as hard to access as they did last time. And yet I've been living in this disempowered, complaining state for a few weeks now.
I've been feeling really low energy and low key overwhelmed, but I kind of told myself this story that there's nothing to be done about it other than just push through. And look, I work with clients on this for a living, and yet here I am playing out the same familiar pattern of overriding my needs and pushing through, not realizing that I have agency and I have a choice to choose a different strategy, or at the very least, I can choose a different mindset.
I could remove the guilt and the self-beat I was feeling on a daily basis around not doing more, all the while chasing around twin toddlers and running my own business and being very, very pregnant. So I want to share what I went through this morning to arrive at this conclusion and this decision to pause the podcast rather than sticking to that original plan, because it kind of dawned on me that this is a lesson that I have clearly had to relearn again and again and again.
and I coach on it so often with my own clients, forgetting that we all have limits and we're allowed to have needs and it is okay to shift our strategy or shift our plan or deprioritize a workload. That does not in fact mean that you're a lazy piece of shit, which is the story I was telling myself. It might just very well mean that you have a lot on your plate.
and you're learning how to return to your power and your sense of agency to be able to continuously adapt the circumstances that life is throwing at you and honor your own needs through every season, every trial and tribulation. So if you are running the same pattern of thinking that you should be superhuman and able to do everything all at once, or if not making yourself wrong when that proves to be impossible, then this episode is for you. So.
Let me take you back to very early this morning. I woke up at 4 a.m., wide awake thanks to pregnancy insomnia. And normally in the last few weeks, I've been waking up from like 2 to 3 30 a.m. And eventually I fall back asleep. But with a 4 a.m. wake up, I knew I was probably just up for the day. So I stayed in bed for a little while, kept my eyes closed, tried to go back to sleep. That wasn't working. So finally I got up, I made myself a cup of coffee, got back in bed and I pulled out my journal.
And before the day had even started, before my girls were awake, I was already feeling crunchy and complainy and low energy. And I was just venting onto my morning pages, like, my God, how am I already feeling this shitty and I'm only 34 weeks? how the hell am I gonna make it through the next six weeks of pregnancy? I thought it would be significantly easier this time around than it has been. And yet here I am at the same point in pregnancy, feeling like it's so hard.
You know, my battery is already on red and I haven't even gotten out of bed for the day. I was just letting it rip on the page. this is an important part of our self-connection journaling intimacy practice of giving yourself permission to be in that unconscious, disempowered, whiny state and let it out onto the pages.
So as I'm writing, I then hear the voices of my twins waking up around 6 a.m. they're great sleepers normally, and they usually sleep about seven to seven. But of course, when my capacity is already depleted, my kids are now entering a new stage where they need less sleep. And so they're waking up at six, and my husband gets up early to commute into San Francisco so he can get back early enough to spend time with them in the evenings.
So in the mornings, I'm solo with my two toddlers. Now I have a little spinning handle on their door so they can't actually get out of their own room, but they've started lying down on the ground by the door and screaming, mama, mama, through the crack and just basically telling me, come in and get us.
And so by the time I got in there, then they were already melting down because one of them was wearing the dress the other one wanted to wear and was chasing her around and essentially rip it off her body. Welcome to my life. So within minutes, I already needed a break. I needed to eat something. I needed them to eat something. So we went into the kitchen, we got smoothies, and then I decided, you know what? We're going back in my bed, which we call the big bed, and we're putting on Daniel Tiger.
which is a cartoon for those of you who are uninitiated into childhood cartoons, while we all just laid in bed for a minute. And they calmed down, they were drinking their smoothies, I was able to lay down and cuddle with them, and I was having such a nice chill moment. And then, don't you know, immediately the guilt sets in. And I start to feel like a bad mom. Like I shouldn't be putting on TV in the morning, certainly not on a weekday. I should be engaging with them, I should be reading books to them, I should be...
coming up with a freaking craft project for them to do. Like a good mom doesn't park her kids in front of the TV within 15 minutes of waking up in the morning, right? So immediately that voice robbed me of any relief or any joy that I was actually feeling in that moment. And I started feeling bad instead. So I got out of bed after letting them watch a 20 minute show, spent the next hour with them, and amidst many a toddler meltdown before their nanny arrived,
and I had to run to the chiropractor because my baby is currently in a breach position and I'm trying to get it to flip so that I can avoid having to have a C-section. So on the way driving to the chiropractor, I'm looking at my calendar for the day and all the podcast work I have to do to batch record all these episodes before Matt leave and time is running out, yada, yada, yada. And then I was also making myself wrong for not being able to get to all these other strategic priorities of my business.
that I know I need to figure out before I go on mat leave because my week is taken up first and foremost by supporting my full current client load and getting ahead on the podcast. And here's the thing, both of these things I normally love to do. Like they normally give me so much energy. But this morning I was just feeling really cranky and really sorry for myself. Everything felt like a have to rather than a get to. So.
I'm driving to the chiropractor and the thought is running through my head that I need to be even more productive right now than usual so that I can give myself that three months off for mat leave and that time is running out. And even if I'm tired and low energy, I just have to push through because I'm going to want to do this work even less with a newborn. And I was just making myself wrong in every single direction. So then after meeting with and getting adjusted by my chiropractor, he tells me that in order to encourage the baby to flip
head down, I need to lay upside down on an ironing board set against a couch, holding a bag of frozen peas or something high on my belly as I guess babies don't like the sensation of cold and are more likely to turn away from it. While doing this, I should also play Bach. No, he really truly told me babies prefer Bach. So play Bach from my phone or a speaker near my pelvic bone as I guess studies have shown that they respond well to that sound.
all while raising my hands over my head, relaxing, breathing, and visualizing the baby flipping. And I need to do this twice a day for 20 minutes at a time, as well as another list of different exercises. Like, I swear to God, this is what the doctor ordered. And look, hey, I am trying to avoid a C-section. After delivering my twins naturally, I am really not trying to have a C-section this time around. So I'm like, whatever. The weirder, the better if it works. I'm all for it.
So I'm lying there upside down on this ironing board, like unable to look at my phone that needs to play Bach for baby. and the thought pops into my head of like, hey, maybe you really just do have too much on your plate right now. maybe, stick with me, maybe it's not that you're an unmotivated lazy sack of shit and a bad mother. Maybe you're just very pregnant.
with two toddlers and a heavy workload, heavier than normal, and maybe you should just take something off your plate rather than continue to make yourself wrong for everything feeling so hard right now. maybe that feeling is information that's trying to get you to pay attention. You guys, it is not lost on me that I literally work on this show with my clients every week, and yet it is sometimes so, so hard to catch yourself in your own patterns when you're deep in them. So I'm lying there with this new thought of,
Okay, wait, so what if instead of trying to figure out how to do everything, I asked myself instead, what can I take off my plate? What could that even look like? Because here's what I hadn't been seeing. I had been complaining about the same thing for weeks. My bigness, the low energy I was feeling, feeling like I wasn't doing enough in the business and I needed to be doing more. But underneath all of it was a story I wasn't questioning. I was just accepting this disempowered mindset of,
There's nothing I can do other than to just push through the next six weeks. I was just taking that as a fact, that is just the way it is. But that wasn't actually true. That was a story that I was telling myself that was keeping me stuck and keeping me from seeing the bigger picture and my own agency and choices that I had within it. So once that question arose, I was returned to my power. I was able to ask.
What if I did take something off my plate? What could that be? What could I realistically deprioritize? And at first, the knee-jerk reaction honestly was nothing. I can't take anything off my plate. It's all important. But I know enough by now to then interrogate that first thought. And the truth was, I don't want to stop seeing clients or push out calls at this point. That still feels good to me. And it's a commitment that I've made that I want to see through. But.
The thing actually taking up the majority of the rest of my work week was batch recording all these podcast episodes. And so I asked myself, what if I didn't do that? Like, what would that mean? How would that really impact the business? And essentially, it meant I'd either need to pick the podcast back up and start recording again about six weeks into my mat leave as I'm already kind of batched that far out, or I'd need to pause the podcast for a bit while on mat leave.
And yeah, maybe you guys all don't have a new episode in your app every week, but is that the end of the world? Will people come back after my maternity leave and listen again if they've been getting value so far? And the answer is yeah. So from there, I was able to see, hey, pausing the podcast in the months of July and August, when people are also already enjoying their summer and traveling, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
And also maybe by taking a mat leave, pausing the podcast, I would actually be giving my listeners and clients permission to do the same, to make trade-offs, to not try to do it all at once, to not make themselves wrong for not being superhuman. And once I could see that, it felt like clearly the right choice. I immediately just felt the relief and the lightness in my body. I didn't have to release a podcast episode every week while I was on mat leave.
I was choosing to. And if that was a choice, I could also choose something different. And so that is how I landed on the decision to take this two month break while on leave starting next week. But I don't share all this just to complain about my pregnancy or let you in on my innermost crazy thoughts in my brain or share fun tips for flipping a breech baby though now you have them if you need them. No, I'm sharing all of this with you because I know that this is a pattern not just in my life
but very likely in yours too. And so often when we're feeling crunchy and complaining about the same thing over and over, it's because we're disconnected from our own sense of agency and our empowerment. And we're not able to see the choices and trade-offs we have available to us.
We're trying to just override our feelings and our emotional body, rather than trusting those sensations as important information and data which we're meant to act on. That crunchy feeling, that heaviness, the resentment, the frustration on repeat, that's actually wisdom and it's an opportunity for redirection. That's so often, instead of listening to ourselves, instead of trusting that feeling, we override it. We tell ourselves,
this is just how it is, or I guess I'm lazy, or I just need to push through. And so often we believe that story to be the indisputable capital T truth. So life feels like it's happening to us and that we just need to endure it. But the real truth is that there is almost always something we can choose.
Whether that is a new strategy to bring on more support, to drop something from our to-do list, or even just choosing a new mindset. Even just telling myself this morning, instead of, you're a bad mom for letting your kids watch TV, I had the power to choose to let them watch TV fully and tell myself, look, you're in the final stretch of pregnancy, you aren't sleeping well, you're big and uncomfortable, and it is totally okay if you entertain your kids for 30 minutes in the morning while enjoying their snuggles.
we can choose to make ourselves right instead of wrong, or we can choose to zoom out, see the bigger picture when something doesn't feel good, and figure out what else we can choose instead. And I truly see this come up all the time with my clients. Just recently, I was speaking to a client who was legitimately so sick, but her brain was telling her that, are you really that sick? Like, you could probably still work. And doesn't that just sound so familiar?
Like we don't even trust our own pain or the sensations in our own bodies. Instead, we just gaslight ourselves into thinking, it's not actually that bad. Like toughen up, don't be a baby. But what if we trusted those feelings instead and then we acted on that information? That I'm actually tired and it's okay to watch TV this morning. That it's actually too much on my plate at this point in pregnancy and I get to pause the podcast. Or for you, maybe it's.
Okay, I left work early to squeeze in a workout class and it's okay if I didn't immediately respond to my boss at 530 when they pinged me. I'm not a bad employee. Or I do actually need to hire a cleaner or a gardener or a house manager to take something off my plate because moming and girl bossing and doing it all really is too much and that doesn't make me a failure or a shitty wife.
The first trap is to avoid believing that you don't have a choice because I promise you almost always do. And then the second trap I wanna name as well is making yourself wrong for choosing that choice like I did with the TV. I chose to put it on and then I made myself wrong for it the whole time so I didn't even get to enjoy it because I felt like shit. So learn the lesson from me. First, consciously choose and then once you choose, allow yourself to choose it fully.
Accept the trade-offs. Acknowledge that it doesn't make you a failure or a shitty person because you can't do it all. Otherwise, you don't get to enjoy the benefit of the choice you've already made. So, I am choosing to take a break for this podcast for July and August, and I will be back with you on September 1st. And I trust that you will return and spend this time in other beautiful ways between now and then. But look, this work isn't easy. It's work that I clearly have to keep coming back to.
Because sometimes it really does feel like we're disempowered. everything is just hard and we're just wrong. And sometimes it feels even harder to give yourself permission to make another choice. But when we can begin to recognize those crunchy feelings as truth, zoom out, see what other choices we have available, and then actually choose one without guilt, without shame, that is when relief sets in and everything starts to feel just a little bit lighter and a little bit easier.
So here's your invitation as you walk away from this episode. Sit with the question, where in your life right now are you constantly feeling stuck, overwhelmed, frustrated, or making yourself wrong? Where do you feel unhappy and disempowered? And what would become possible if you stopped overriding that and started listening instead? What other options do you have available to you when you zoom out and see that bigger picture? Where is your agency in this?
because there is almost always something you can do. And then whatever you choose, choose it fully. Even if you keep choosing to do exactly what you're doing, choose it consciously. Say, yes, this matters to me, this is worth it, this is a decision I'm making, I'm choosing to let something drop, and don't waste another second on the guilt about dropping it. For me, landing in that practice over these next six weeks looks like my kids are gonna watch more TV than usual.
that gets to be okay. The podcast is going to pause for two months. It's not going to implode my business. I'm going to spend that time being deeply present over Matley with my newborn, with my twins, with my family. And I get to choose all of that without making myself wrong for any of it. So before I go and sign off for the next two months, a few quick reminders, invitations for you.
If you've been listening to this podcast for a while now and just know that one-on-one coaching is calling to you and you feel like you're ready to finally enlist support to build the confidence and the clarity to really redesign your own career and your own life to feel truly intentional and empowered and aligned, I have a few one-on-one spots that will be opening up on the other side of my maternity leave starting at the end of September. So I will drop a link in the show notes and I invite you to.
apply for coaching because this is the time that you'll be able to get one of those spots. And similarly, if you are clear and committed to building something of your own outside of corporate, you're starting your own business and you wanna be in an incredible group of women doing it alongside of you, learning AI, figuring out strategies together, climbing towards as they call it that second mountain, I would so love for you to apply for the second mountain mastermind.
kicks off at the beginning of October, right after I'm back from leave. It's gonna be so, so good. It is capped at 12 women. It's gonna be so intimate and so juicy and I just cannot wait. So the link to apply is also in the show notes. So with that, I hope you all have the most wonderful summer. I hope it's filled with lots of sunshine and travel and people you love or whatever it is that brings you joy. And if you are missing the podcast and if there are any episodes that you haven't gotten to yet,
I think there are over 30 of them by now. You can go back, listen to the ones you've missed. There's so many good conversations in there. And as I mentioned, the podcast will be returning September 1st. I am so looking forward to being back with you all then, revived, energized, a third baby integrated into our family rather than in my belly leeching my energy and my resources. But until then, take such good care of yourselves and remember to recognize where do you have a choice and to choose that fully.
I'll see you in September.
