143. How to Let Go of Guilt

by | Apr 13, 2023

If you feel like you get bogged down and stuck because of you’re feeling guilty for taking any extra time for yourself, listen in!

On today’s show I share how to let go of emotions like guilt or selfishness so you can have a little bit of time for yourself during your week to fill your budket – even with all the things you have going on. I’ll see you inside! xo, Janeen

If you’d like help applying the information I share on the podcast to your life, book a call!

>> CLICK HERE to Watch on YouTube

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Janeen: Well, hey there, you guys. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. How are you? How are you doing? It is beautiful spring weather right now outside of Denver. It’s absolutely gorgeous. I’m gonna go out for a walk as soon as I finish recording this episode, and I am so excited that summer is coming.

[00:00:20] Summer is totally my season of the year. Super excited it’s just around the corner. Okay, so today on the podcast we are talking about how to let go of mom guilt. So I know so often moms feel guilty for taking time for themselves, and this is not just moms, but women in general. We only have so many hours a day.

[00:00:40] I know you’re juggling so many things with what’s happening at home, what’s happening at work maybe, what your kids are doing, like all the extra things. You live a very fast paced, full life. I totally get it. It’s so tempting not to get to the most important things like time to just [00:01:00] breathe, time to relax, time to find that work-life balance that I think so many of us are seeking and yet we can’t help but just continue to move at this very fast pace.

[00:01:13] I think moms in general have a never ending to-do list. I think we’re constantly trying to decide how to juggle all the things and kind of time triage our lives so that we are allocating certain amounts of time to certain things, and it’s so easy for us to put our own wants and needs on the back burner in doing that.

[00:01:35] And I think we feel guilty for that. I think sometimes we’re just like, ah, but I just wish I had more time with my kids, so I’m gonna spend time doing that with them, or I’m gonna do this other thing. And then again, the things that are most important to us, like our sleep, like our fitness, like our health are things that we’re not getting to.

[00:01:54] So that’s what we’re talking about today, and I think it is our nature to give. But if we give and give and [00:02:00] give and give and it’s not balanced, like I said, it’s just not sustainable. We end up feeling resentful. We end up feeling really dissatisfied with our life, and I think over time we lose our sense of self.

[00:02:12] We start to feel grouchy. We end up yelling and we end up giving at our own expense, like I was just saying, with our happiness and our sleep and our health and all those things.

[00:02:23] And I think oftentimes we get kinda stuck or trapped feeling like it has to be this black and white way of thinking where we have to either swing the pendulum over one way where we give and give and give, and we kind of have this societal reward or this cultural reward where people say, oh my gosh, you’re just amazing.

[00:02:42] You are just supermom. Like, how do you get all these things done? Or we swing the pendulum over the other way where we consider ourselves selfish for taking time for ourselves with thinking that by doing that we don’t have any regard to what other people are doing. You may [00:03:00] have even thought that as I’ve been talking, like how can you take the time for yourself if you haven’t spent enough time with your kids.

[00:03:10] And I want you just thinking about that. I want you thinking, is that true? Is that you, do you feel like you are a selfish person? Of course not, right? You are not driving a luxury car when your kids don’t have a jacket to wear in the cold. That’s not you. Right? What I want to do in this episode is to help you see your self-care from a different lens today, cuz I’ve been in both worlds. I’ve been in a place where I’m like, Nope, no one gets any more time. And I’ve also been in this place where I’ve given and given and given where I have overworked myself.

[00:03:46] I’ve given at the expense of myself, and that doesn’t feel good either. So I’ve noticed for myself, when I spend time on me, I’m getting good rest. I’m eating really well, I’m exercising, and when I’m [00:04:00] in that space, I actually have more to give. And I know that that makes sense, cerebrally, but actually applying that on a day-to-day basis

[00:04:08] is challenging for us. But when I have more to give, I do feel more joy. I do have more creative ideas. I have more excitement in my life, and I’m more present, and I’m more grateful for my family and my kids and the other people that I give to. Of course, when you only focus on other people, And thinking this is what you need to do in order to be a good mom.

[00:04:29] We end up self-sacrificing. And I do have to say here, one of the things that I’ve kind of reasoned out in my own mind is, this is not a good example for my kids, the people who are watching me. This is not a good example for them and their futures or right now I think our kids need to learn how to do things on their own and they don’t get to learn that if you are stepping in and always doing things for them or with them.

[00:04:56] One of my kids, my third Isaac, yeah, [00:05:00] he’s, he’s come up on the podcast before, but he’s someone who always loves to have other people around him. In fact, when he was little, he really struggled because he always wanted someone to play with him. And just the nature of family life, not everybody wants to be around everybody else all the time.

[00:05:18] Right. And that was a real struggle for him. So teaching him to play by himself and be independent has been something that I’ve had to really focus on as far as like the specific things I’m teaching that child. So when we sacrifice ourselves, when we end up giving and giving, we sacrifice our sleep, our health, our peace of mind.

[00:05:36] We’re not setting up our future self for success. We end up slowly deteriorating. Our bodies, of course, decline with age, and there are things that we can do to prolong that decline. There are also things that we can do to age faster, right? When we deprive ourselves of sleep and we are stressed out, those kinds of things are not setting our future self up [00:06:00] for good health.

[00:06:00] And I also wanna say here, it’s possible for us to become a burden at someone else’s expense. I’ve worked in a nursing home way back in the day when I was trying to get hours for grad school, and it had a profound impact on my life. I love my job. I was loving people all day long, and yet I knew I did not want to be waiting for my family to come and see me.

[00:06:25] I also did not want to be in a place where I wasn’t able to take care of myself. It’s one of the things that’s like the driving force behind some of the why’s in why I do all the things that I do to take good care of myself is I want to be functioning as long as I possibly can. Not just physically, but also mentally as well.

[00:06:45] And I do want to say that giving to others isn’t always draining for sure. This is gonna depend on you, what you love and what you’re doing, what else you’ve committed to, right? I think it’s so important every single week that [00:07:00] we map out our time. We tell ourselves how we’re going to spend our time. This is something I literally do every single week.

[00:07:07] I do not miss a week. I tell myself how I’m going to use my time, and I follow through. At the beginning of the week, I decide how I’m going to spend my time from my highest self. But the thing is, is when I try to execute on my plan, there is this little voice that sometimes pops up in my head that says, but you should be hanging out with your kids, right?

[00:07:27] When I’m building my business, I’m also homeschooling my kids. We’re all together all day long in the same house. I should be hanging out with my kids more, even though I’m spending quite a bit of time. There was that little voice that popped up in my head that made me feel guilty if I was actually going and doing something besides doing something with them. Or there was this little voice that said in my head, but you should say, yes, you should volunteer. You should do it this way.

[00:07:52] You should be helping your kids. You should do this for your kids. You should do this for other people. Some of you have listened to me talk about saying no [00:08:00] to others, and I think some of you feel like this is a very selfish thing to do. I do not feel this way anymore about saying no, because I’ve learned the hard way.

[00:08:10] Then when I say yes to everything and everyone, first of all, I have no time and I end up feeling super resentful. If we are doing things for others and not ourselves, we’re making subconscious decisions with our time. We’re giving it all away and we end up getting frustrated that we don’t have more time for ourselves at the end of the day.

[00:08:27] It’s not selfish to know what you’re about in your life and what your purpose is and what your mission is.

[00:08:35] And live from that truth. This is totally our prerogative as people, as human beings. We need to do this more in our lives. Being selfish in this sense is not a negative thing. Each of us has unique gifts and talents to share, and it’s a privilege to learn about those things and share those things with the people around us and the rest of the world.

[00:08:56] I am really, really good at being a cheerleader and a [00:09:00] supporter, but if you truly feel that way about your life, that’s. But so many of us are playing that role and it’s creating a lot of friction and unhappiness because we feel like we have to play that role all the time.

[00:09:12] And maybe you’re like, well, I just don’t really know what I want. That’s okay. It’s totally okay. I think sometimes we get to a point where we’ve given so much for so long, we’ve kinda lost touch with who we are as people. As a human being, cuz you’re a human first, right? And so it’s really important for us, I think, to take the time to get to know us.

[00:09:36] And I talk about this a lot on the podcast. What’s not helpful is when we say yes from this place of obligation and not really wanting to spend our time on that specific project. Yes. I think what’s so important to just clarify here is that you can be selfless and you can be selfish doing the same thing, but it all depends on where your energy is coming [00:10:00] from.

[00:10:00] Some of you don’t want to put your foot down with your kids. And this is challenging. I think sometimes we have these ideas of what good moms should be doing, right? If you pride yourself, for example, on making all of your meals from scratch,

[00:10:14] There might come a time where you notice how much time you’re spending prepping your food. This is something that’s actually happened to one of my clients. She was realizing, oh my gosh, I’m spending so much time on food, prepping food for other people who are old enough to prep food for themselves. It is not selfish to take your time back.

[00:10:33] It’s your time. Right. If your kids are older and they’re capable of learning how to cook for themselves and do their own food, it’s not selfish for you to take your time back. In fact, that might be an empowering move on your part to help your kids learn how to feed themselves. I have had kids leave that, I’m like, hope you don’t starve. I mean, not because I wasn’t teaching them how to cook because they didn’t wanna learn. But I have noticed the same thing. I have noticed over [00:11:00] time that I have had to kind of reevaluate how much time I’m spending on food prep. I love to eat plant-based. You guys know that about me.

[00:11:07] I love to feed my body with really, really clean fuel. But for me, sometimes a pot of chili and a box of spring mixed salad is just fine. It takes me 15, 20 minutes to put that together. I’m not a bad mom because I took that time back for myself. If you are demanding time from someone else at their expense, that is a selfish move on your part because you’re just thinking of yourself. My kids whine sometimes about folding their own laundry or eating leftovers. What are they expecting? That I’m gonna do that for them? Then I’m gonna cook a meal from scratch every single day.

[00:11:42] No, I own my time. If I decide that we’re having leftovers three times a week, then we’re having leftovers three times a week. Unless they wanna step in and cook a dinner, then I’d be like, more power to ya. Please, please, by all means, cook me dinner. That would be great. What [00:12:00] I will do though for them is I will help them with their homework.

[00:12:03] I will shop for groceries so they have food to eat. Of course, I will buy them healthy things. I will teach them how to fish, but I’m not gonna go out there and fish for them until they’re 18 and ready to leave the house. I don’t think if I was doing that, if I was fishing for them for their whole lives, they would be ready to leave the house.

[00:12:18] Right. Your time is valuable and so is your life, and so is your health. You are so worth the time that it takes to take care of yourself sometime during the day, for sure. Little time alone in the morning or in the evening, or maybe both. Maybe time during the day to work on a little project that brings you joy.

[00:12:39] Maybe some personal study time to sharpen your mind or to enhance your spiritual life. You are so worth the time that it takes to teach yourself something new. For sure.

[00:12:50] Even if no one else in your life appreciates it. Just do it for you because you’re interested and because you love it. How would this change things for you? Who would you [00:13:00] be with a little extra time for yourself? I don’t think this is selfish. You are your own person. You have a life. You have interests outside of your family, and that is a good thing.

[00:13:11] So pursuing those things is amazing. And the guilt or the selfishness that sometimes accompany those things are a hundred percent optional. That all comes from the way that you’re thinking about it. If you’re thinking to yourself, that’s like, but I should, it’s just not helpful. So plan your life from your highest self.

[00:13:31] Put those things on your calendar and in your day, and at the end of the week, you can evaluate and be like, okay, how would, how did that balance go? I feel like I spent too much time working on these little projects for me, or do I feel like I need more of that? How did that go? And then pay attention to the conversation in your head,

[00:13:48] in the moment that’s going to come up, that’s gonna say something like, but you should do something different than what you’re doing right now. Pay attention to that. We all bring these cultural shoulds [00:14:00] forward with us as we live our day-to-day lives, for sure. So pay attention to all of. And fill your bucket first.

[00:14:08] Mama. That is not a selfish thing to do. All right. That is what I have for you this week. I hope this podcast episode is empowering to you. I hope it makes a difference in your life. If this one was a good one for you, please share it with your friends. I would love it. It’s how we can grow our community as Mamas Who Do. So thank you so much for tuning in today. It was my pleasure hanging out with you and I hope you have a beautiful rest of your week. We will talk to you soon. We’ll see ya. Bye.

 

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