Ep #50: My Cheat Sheet for Women 35-49
Episode Summary
Jenna continues her celebration series by sharing stories and some uncommon life tips for entrepreneurial women aged 35 to 49.
Join us in the Clarity Accelerator by scheduling a call here.
Enjoy the show? Leave a review to help other like-minded entrepreneurs gain clarity in their businesses.
If you'd like to talk about working together, book a call here.
Show Notes
Where are you in your life, in your days? Are you doing what you've always dreamed of? Are you filling your life with meaning? Life is a juggle, a journey, a process. The more you can do to accept more, receive more, and strive for more, the better your life will be. This work is especially valuable in your thirties and fourties.
Join me for part two of my Celebrating 50 Years on Earth series where I offer tips for success and methods for entrepreneurial women to thrive. I share my moments of mistakes and moments of joy to encourage you to get clear on what you really want and make decisions with clarity.
I invite you to dig into my tips for 35 to 49-year-olds so you can feel empowered to make aligned choices in all areas of life. May these tips meet you where you're at and encourage you to grow with clarity. Listen in today.
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
Why long term goals require prioritization.
The power of choice.
Why enjoying the journey is everything.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
If you'd like to talk about working together, book a call here.
Click here to sign up for my newsletter and find out how the Connect The Dots Method has helped clients in all stages of their business.
Follow me on Instagram for behind-the-scenes content and daily value bombs!
Click here to learn more about the Clarity Accelerator
Patriarchy Stress Disorder: The Invisible Inner Barrier to Women’s Happiness and Fulfillment by Dr. Valerie Rein
Scream Free Parenting by Hal Edward Runkel, LMFT
Paula’s Choice Skincare Liquid Exfoliant
Full Episode Transcript:
You're listening to The Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the only podcast that helps you unlock your next level in business and life by prioritizing your clarity and your own Uncommon Way. You will learn to maximize your mindset, mission, messaging, and strategy in order to create a true legacy. Here's your host, top-ranked business coach, and reformed over-analyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.
Hello, hello, and welcome back to The Uncommon Way. I hope that you are loving your summer just diving full in. I had just the perfect summer experience this last week. My son, Dylan, and I went hiking on the Adirondack trail. This area of Pennsylvania has some of the highest elevation on the trail. And so, we had hiked straight up the mountain to get this beautiful view of the entire valley, Cumberland Valley, and the winding Susquehanna River. These are called the Blue Mountains.
It was just hill after hill after hill in the distance, and it was really magical. It was magical for that experience, the perfect little point in time where the weather was great, and there weren't a lot of bugs. But it was also magical, because for the first time, Dylan's five now, he could come with me on a hike.
And, of course, we were pausing every five minutes for him to look at a bug or a cobweb or to stop and tell me a story about how a flea got caught in his sock once and then a snake bit it off and he had no sock. You know, all the imagination. Which was just so cute to see through the window in the imagination.
But as some of you know, that have had younger children, there's a point where you're their best friend, and they physically can't do those things with you. You're doing a lot of things like, rolling a ball back and forth over and over and over. Or one of my specific ones, was he was in this phase where he would draw the planet Saturn. He would draw a hundred Saturns over and over.
Now, it's like, “Oh, he came with me, on something I love. I got to do something I love with him, with the camaraderie. It's just the two of us on a little day-long excursion.” I think it's very representative of this new phase that I'm stepping into, both with the business and life, where it just feels full of possibilities.
Summer feels like it is here. Right? It is here. This is full summer; the fruit is on the trees. And life is good. So, I am hoping that you have some experience like that going on for you that you can relate to, and that you're having that as well.
All right, so this series, this episode, is where I'm going to give some tips to women between the ages of 35 and 49. I did an earlier episode for younger women. It's because I recently was turning 50, in New York City, and I realized I felt differently about this birthday than I have about really any birthday in the past.
And that's because rather than being excited for turning the whatever age it was, or this year, I couldn't stop celebrating the fact that I have been around the sun now 49 times, and that I've had such an interesting life. And I have lessons that have come from that life. I just felt very moved to share them.
I did not want this to be too preachy. I got some really positive feedback from the first episode, so I'm glad it didn't come off that way. I definitely don't want it to. I don't want this one to, either. And so, I hope that one of these points really serves you. If you are a woman who is not yet 35 to 49, I love this episode for you too.
Because I love to plant seeds for my clients, and I love it when people can do it for me. They can drop a little nugget about something that will be coming up in my future, so that I can start to kind of breathe it in and get used to it. Be thinking about it and familiarize myself with it so that when I finally get there, I can hit the ground running.
For so many of us, we just don't know what we don't know. Well, for everyone, we don't know what we don't know. That's why it's so helpful when someone who's already been there can be like, “Look, here are some things that might be coming up for you, start getting used to that. Start thinking about it now.”
For those of you that are in the 35 to 49 age range, if you haven't listened to the earlier podcast, I do recommend you go back. I couldn't listen to it. Because it's the advice that I wish I'd had at that age, but I didn't have. A lot of you may not have had it, either. And so, those are the foundational pieces. That's what all of this advice will be building upon. And they’re things that we all need.
So, for instance, for the advice that I'll be giving here, I'm assuming that you've learned a good deal about managing your mind already. That, for instance, it doesn't surprise you when you have a human brain, when you feel fear, or when you have strong emotions. I'm assuming that you have some tolerance for failure. That you're able to hold discomfort in your body, and see it for what it is.
And lastly, if you have not listened to my earlier podcast on my thoughts about longevity, I really recommend you do that, either before or after. Because what we will not be talking about in this episode, is anything that has to do with getting older, being an older lady, being a middle-aged woman – yuck - resigning yourself to any of that. Definitely won’t be talking about any of that.
That may surprise some of you, and it may be hard for you to really lean in to some of the things that I'm talking about here, if that is how you think about this phase of your life that you're entering into. Maybe I’ll be talking about that stuff when I'm 100. I don't know, talking to my 80-year-old gals. But I sure as hell am not going to be talking about it right now.
Okay, with that, let's dive into it, shall we? The first one I have for you, is something around building your legacy or being very intentional. So, in the first episode, I was talking about building a business. While I hope that you can “do it right” the first time… I definitely would help all of my clients look for the thing that will be their business for life. But let's just say that wasn't your journey, and that you did have some different things you were doing.
When you're in your 20s, I think that's okay, if you're going to be experimenting. But at this stage, it's really a beautiful moment to get clear and to get serious. We may only have one life to live, and I know that you all really want this life to bring forth your potential.
How do I know that? It's because, over and over again, the women that come to me could have made money in corporate or whatever they were doing. And at some point, it wasn't about that, it was about something more.
It's about, what are we really here to do? What is the legacy that I'm going to be leaving? How am I impacting people? But that desire is always counteracted by the fact that we have human brains. And human brains are, of course, bringing up all the fears, all the reasons why we shouldn't be doing that. Our brains also have a short-term bias. And so, we heavily weigh the pleasure of something in the short term compared to the long term.
That's what I'm seeing, when I have clients that say, “Yes, I do want to be building my business. But actually, right now, I also want to be taking salsa lessons. I just really want to be laying around and watching Netflix. It just feels really good to watch Netflix. Maybe this isn't the right season. Maybe I just want to really be raising my children and spending these years with them. And then, maybe later, I'll do something that is meaningful for me, above and beyond my children,” because of course, children are meaningful.
While all of those choices are valid and fine, and a lot of people do live in that way... In fact, I was just having a conversation the other day with someone who had been in Spain. We were talking about how there, really, people are just working in order to live well.
When I was living there, the most coveted job was the postal worker. Because the postal workers get the most benefits and the most days off and they work the fewest hours. So, everyone wants to be, or wanted to be, a postal worker. This is 25 years ago.
I have a lot of friends like this. That really just want to work in something that's okay, that they don't hate, and then use that money to travel or do other things. And so, there's nothing wrong with any of those things. And if that is your truth, more power to you.
But for most of the people listening to this podcast, that is not your truth. There's just an issue where you're balancing that deep desire with all of the realities of your day-to-day life and your human brain. While I believe there should be time in your life for salsa dancing and for Netflix, even if you're building your business, you're never doing those at the exclusion of building your business. You're not making that choice.
When I say building your business, it doesn't have to be a business, obviously. If you're a researcher in academia doing important work there, right? That is where your mission lies. But it's your job to make sure that that is heavily weighted in your mind.
When you think of the desire of the short term, which is where the brain will go, and you think of the desire for that long term goal, you’ll need to do the work to create the desire for that long term goal.
That goal doesn't owe you the desire. It's not the goal’s job to make you feel excited about it. It's your job to lean into that desire, and to really prioritize and be intentional about the decisions you make, and the effort and focus you put into creating that reality.
Another thing I was talking to a friend about recently was this story... I'm sure you might have heard it; I'll just tell it quickly. It's about, I think, the tycoon and the Mexican fisherman. Have you heard this? The tycoon goes down to Mexico and he sees a fisherman in the water and says, “You know what? You could get a second boat, and then you'd have double the catch.”
And the fisherman said, “Well, why would I do that?” And then the tycoon goes on to say, “Because then you could hire even more boats, have a fleet, and have much higher profits.” And the fisherman says, “Well, why would I do that?” “It's so that you can build a factory, and start taking that part of the supply chain into your own control. Then, you'll have the profits for that.”
“Why would I want to do that?” “Because then you can do total vertical integration, all the way from catching the fish.” And the fisherman says, “Why would I do that?” And the tycoon says, “Because then you'd be able to buy a boat, and just fish all day off the coast of Mexico.”
It's such a fun story, right? It really helps us ground back into, what is it that we really want to be doing? If it's that we really want to be just spending our days fishing off the coast of Mexico, why aren't we doing that now? We're always chasing that carrot.
But here's the thing, when I really think about that story, and I think about the difference between the tycoon and the fisherman, you know what I see as two key differences? One, is choice. The tycoon can choose to fish off the coast of Mexico. The tycoon can also choose to go to Bali and do a retreat. The tycoon could also choose to be heliskiing in Canada.
The fisherman cannot. The fisherman doesn't have the choice. And for me, choice in how I live my life, the desires that I have, and my ability to follow through on them is everything. That freedom, and that autonomy in my life, is everything.
The second potential difference is meaning. Now, we don't know for sure, right? Maybe the fisherman finds such deep meaning in that work. Maybe the tycoon doesn't find any meaning at all in that work. But for me, no matter how ideal my life looked on paper, if there were no meaning, I would not want that life. Even if I get to sail off the coast of Mexico every day without a care in the world, I wouldn't choose that if there were no meaning.
I learned that firsthand when I lived in Spain. I'm doing a series of podcasts about all of the actual stories in my life that led to all of these tips I'm giving now. Definitely, that time in Spain was formative in the way I think here, in terms of really being intentional about what you do. There are a couple other things in my life as well, which again, I'll be talking about in other podcasts.
Okay, second tip. We're going back to the biological clock, like we did in the last episode. This is for those of you who do want to have children. Obviously, if you don't, more power to you. But I know for me, I toyed with the idea of not having children when I was younger. I wasn't sure if I would. But right at about 36, 37 years old, something happened within me.
It went from being a theoretical thought about, “It would be nice to have a family. It would be nice to have legacy. To have a conversation with a child. To raise a human.” It went from all of that, to very targeted. I could not keep my eyes off of babies and toddlers. Everywhere I looked, I was just riveted looking at them. I felt that desire build within me.
Now, I know it's annoying as all hell when you are focusing on important things in your life, and all anyone can do is ask you when you're going to have your babies. When you're going to become a mommy. When you're going to get started on all of that stuff. I get it.
In fact, there was a time, right when I got married, there was a woman who was the wife of one of my husband's friends. She came up and she pulled me aside. They had gone through several rounds of IVF in order to have their child.
She pulled me aside, and she said, basically, “I know you didn't ask for this advice, but I really think you should get started sooner rather than later.” I was so offended. I was so, so offended. Because at that time, I had this little strange thought in my head that I would never have a problem conceiving. That basically, as long as you looked fertile….
I know this sounds crazy, in hindsight. But as long as you looked the part, you were going to be able to make babies. “As long as I was feeling sexual, felt vibrant, felt young, I looked young, and all the things…” I basically was young. “And so, all those crazy statistics out there that you see, that is for other people. I hate to say it, but those are for women with other health complications, and potentially, in the US, are living unhealthy lifestyles. And that doesn't really apply to me. I'm going to be able to have children.”
I made that mean, when she said that, that she was thinking of me as old. And at the time, to be fair, when I got married, I was almost 38. And so, it was a valid point. But I still remember just getting so offended by it.
So, if I am that offensive person to you, I'm willing to do it. Because I wish I'd had maybe one or two or three more people saying, “Hey, if you do want to have children, maybe start earlier.” I mean, maybe there's a reason that all of these annoying people are saying this thing over and over.
Because it does get harder and harder to conceive. But it's not just that, it takes a toll on the marriage when you're trying to conceive. There can be all this timed intercourse, who's trying harder, who's doing enough, and fear and worry and stress that gets brought in. Which, of course, doesn't help with the problem.
It can take a toll on your savings account. A massive toll on your savings account. But even if you do conceive, there are more problems there too, potentially, when you're older. More problems with having what they call a “geriatric pregnancy”, which it’s just amazing to me. But anyone 35 and over can have more complications.
Here's what they don't tell you. It can also be harder to breastfeed later. It's all about the hormone production in your body. I was not anticipating that. That led to lots of extra pumping. I actually ended up finding an off-market medication finally to help, but would have rather not been doing that. Your body doesn't bounce back as quickly as it does when it's younger.
There are some genetic risks for the baby when their parents are older. And that's not just for the woman being older, it's for the man too, and the man's sperm being older. I get that this moment in time might not be the most convenient for you, but there's really never a perfect time to have children. Your thoughts about wanting it to be best for them... That's how I would think.
I would think, “My child will have a better life when I'm at this more established place. When my business is up and running. Then I'll be able to concentrate on the baby more, and that'll give the baby a better experience. Then I'll be able to have more security, in case I ever needed to take care of the baby. What if something happened to my husband or we got a divorce? I need to have that stability myself, that I can care for my child.”
I had a whole bunch of thoughts about all of these things. But really, those thoughts are about your perfectionism and your desire to control. Which is ironic, because so much of parenthood is about giving up control. The truth is, that your children will make you better at whatever you're doing. And yes, it will be hard, doing what you're doing and having children. That is going to expand your capacity, more than pretty much anything else ever could.
I had to learn to get so much more streamlined with my business. I had to learn to develop so much more compassion as a human. I had to learn to let go of control. There were so many benefits to my business from me being a mom. What is it Ginger Rogers said? It's like, “I do what you do, but backwards and in heels.” That's what being a mom is like.
It's like, “Hold my beer. Watch me do this now.” It is amazing what we can do, what we do do as women, and you can do it too. I've also heard, although I don't know this because I have just the one, but I have heard that every child that you have, it's like a new energy moving through you. That it brings a new level of the fiery tiger, or it brings this new level of sage and wisdom. Like, there's some new energetic development within you as well.
For those of you that are having problems conceiving, first of all my heart goes out to you. But if you're having any thoughts about why you wouldn't want to adopt. Why you wouldn't want to use an egg donor? Or why you wouldn't want anything but a completely traditional way of family formation? I just want to be one more voice in your ear saying that, if we can love puppies and cats… If we can become so attached to animals, we will become attached to humans.
You will love this child as your own, and you won't know the difference. Unless, of course, the thoughts in your head are creating the difference, which is another issue. But at a certain point, you deserve to be happy. After many tears, failed pregnancies, whatever has been going on for you, you deserve to be happy and have your family.
I don't know if I've ever told this here, but Dylan was our last embryo. He was our last little snow baby. All the other attempts had failed. All the other embryos were gone. I remember telling Ben, “I just can't do this. I can't handle the pressure of this being the last one.” Because we had already decided, after that we just we weren't going to do any more. It was just too much of a toll on me and us, and I couldn't handle that pressure.
We talked it through, and he encouraged me to try again, without the pressure, of course. But I knew that my next step would be adoption, or something. And so, I did a lot of the work. Part of that work was opening myself up to happiness, as opposed to the part of me that was like, “Keep going, Jenna. Try it one more time. You'll find a way. Where there's a will, there's a way,” all of that talk.
The part that opened up…. This was my truth, it may not be yours, I'm just sharing it. Of course, in case it's helpful. But the part of me that opened up said, “Jenna, you deserve happiness now. Allow that in the way that it's going to come to you.” Alright, enough on that topic.
Let's move on to the next one, which is about being everything to everyone. This can go hand in hand with the being a mom. What this really comes down to is that old cliche of self-care, and the fact that you really have to put on your own oxygen mask first. I know this is all over. Everyone's telling moms to focus on themselves. But it's so hard, isn't it?
Not just moms, we want to be a good partner. We want to be a good member of our community. We want to do all the things, especially as women that were raised to do. My only advice here, is to just see that urge, and be able to watch the urge, kind of from the point of view of the watcher, and be able to tolerate that urge without acting on it all the time. To be able to watch that urge.
Because let me tell you, even when estrogen starts declining… And I say estrogen, because estrogen has a lot to do with that urge, actually. It's been shown that younger women feel more of an urge to dress up and attract the opposite sex. Whereas older women, they don't give a fuck quite as much.
Now that I'm saying this, I realize that I don't actually have a cited study that I could refer to. So, I'm going to take that back, what I said about ‘it has been shown’, and I'm just going to tell you that that's definitely anecdotal in pretty much every woman I talked to. At a certain age, they just have let it go. I just remember in the back of my mind somewhere, seeing it linked. So, we'll put that aside.
But here's what I want to say. Even when estrogen starts declining, that patterning remains because you've been doing it your whole life. Because you've been brought up to think of it that way your whole life. That does not decline until you do the work on it. Again, it comes as that old dichotomy of being the wonder woman, being able to do it all, versus getting support.
I was talking to a woman just the other day, she’d sent a form. and she said, “I still kind of feel like, actually I should be able to do this on my own.” And so, I referred her back to the podcast, and I suggested that she spend some more time thinking through that, about whether she really did want to do it on her own, or if she wanted to avail herself of support.
That is so deeply patterned, and we have to be the first ones that say, “I'm willing to let this life change.” There's definitely a place of privilege where you could say, “Oh, I'm going to hire house cleaners. I'm going to do this... I'll work through and override that part of me that says I should be able to do it all.”
But even if you don't have access to those things, chances are there are some resources that you're not availing yourself of because of what you're making it mean in your mind. I remember times, earlier on when Dylan was really young, my mom had moved to live near us. Specifically, to be near her grandson.
Yet there were so many times where I was not availing myself of her help, because of what I thought it made it mean about me. In hindsight, that wasn't helping my mom, it wasn't helping me, and it wasn't helping Dylan, or Ben, or anyone, or my business, my clients, anybody. The only thing that was helping was my ego, that let me fulfill the role of the one who was juggling all of these balls.
I've been reading a parenting book; I'm always reading parenting books lately. I love one of the things the author said. I think I’ve mentioned this book a couple times, so I should definitely link to it in the show notes. But one of the things he was saying, is that self-care at a certain point, it's not even about you anymore, it really becomes about them.
Like, you need to do this for yourself so that… You need to be healthy in your body, so that you can show up better. You need to be more grounded and relaxed with your nervous system, so that you can show up better. And so, you overriding these egoic tendencies that really aren't serving anyone, is the greatest sacrifice, or the most difficult work, that you can actually do.
Staying in the old pattern is not that difficult work. Breaking the pattern is the difficult and very worthy work, because you and everyone around you benefits.
For number four, I have, don't be afraid of more. What I mean by that, is don't be afraid of receiving. I have another story to tell about when Dylan was young; it seems a lot of this came up for me then. Here's another book. If you haven't read Patriarchy Stress Disorder, that is another good one.
It talks about how a lot of things get triggered when we enter into traditionally female roles such as marriage or motherhood. And so, for me, when I had my child, a lot of fears got triggered. A lot of fears, specifically about upsetting the cart of too much.
I was so grateful that my baby was healthy, and that my baby was alive. I remember, once being stopped at a stoplight and I was thinking about business. I was wanting more in my business. I was kind of thinking about how to get that; I forget what it was, it’s so long ago.
But right then, a family crossed the crosswalk in front of me and there was a Ronald McDonald House right on the corner. The child was in a reclining wheelchair and hooked up to tubes. I just remember that I felt like a kick in my chest, as if a donkey had just kicked me in the chest. My immediate thought was basically, “Jenna, don't break this. Don't ask for too much. Just be happy with what you have.”
I've heard that kind of fear echoed among other women. Not just about their children, but just the fact that, is it right, is it moral, is it okay for them to wish for more, to keep striving for more? Does that mean there's something wrong with them?
And to talk about how difficult it feels to receive. Like I was just saying before, receiving support, receiving money. What does that mean about you? Receiving love, receiving accolades, receiving success. I've done a whole podcast on this topic, as well.
This is difficult for a lot of us. But guess what? This is the time in your life to make sure you're flipping that script. Because if not, it's like an anchor down on your boat when you're trying to drive forward. If you're saying you want the success, but meanwhile, there's a hidden agenda that you really don't want the success because you're afraid of ‘fill in the blank’.
You're afraid you'll isolate yourself from your friends and family. You're afraid you'll upset the applecart, and that some catastrophic thing will happen in your life. You're afraid of whatever it is, right? You're not going to call in that success. It's okay to want it. It's okay to go after it. And it's okay to receive it.
In the process of that, number five, is enjoy the process. This is really hard to do. Because the way we're wired, is with a negativity bias to be dissatisfied with how things are and to always be trying to make it a little better. This may sound like I'm going against what I just said, but I'm really not.
Because you can still be going for more, and see that more is available to you and desire more and be excited for more, while loving exactly where you are at this moment. It sounds so overdone, “Love the process, blah, blah, blah,” but it will change your life. Because if you don't clear up, if you don't get a handle on what your brain is doing, then even when you get to the desired goal, you'll still feel just the same.
It's such a worthwhile work to truly love the ride. I think I'm having a client of mine to come back on to talk about this. I can see the difference with my clients that get this work and are really diving into this work, and others that struggle with this work in terms of how long it takes them to move forward in their business.
Because on top of circumstances that are not ideal, that they don't want; which are natural in entrepreneurship. Because you're failing most of the time in your business as you're learning your way forward. No matter what level you're at in your business. But on top of that, we all have the negativity piled on that really, again, it's like that anchor. It's like that thing holding you down.
Even in a kind of negative circumstance. Maybe you're having an issue with a client that feels challenging and difficult. You can say, “This is so fascinating for me to be at this point in time really able to see this. Really allowing my brain to sink into why I don't want these kinds of clients anymore. Why I am choosing to change my messaging. Why I am choosing to get clear.”
Or you're building your audience and you don't have the clients coming in yet that you want. Why is it so wonderful? What desire are you building for this future end state when you do have a larger audience, and you do have more and more people recognizing your work.
What else is going on in your life? I mean, maybe it's really nice when it was just you doing all the things, learning all the things, and your partner supporting you, even though. The funny little things that your relatives say to you that help you see that you really are doing something different.
You really are a front runner on this way of a new economy, and a new way of being for women. This isn't just positive thinking. I mean, it is positive thinking, but it's not just slapping happy thoughts onto a negative experience.
It's really the awareness that we see everything through lenses of our biology, for instance. That we can be the watcher of those things going on. And that even though it feels real, it doesn't mean it's true, right? So, you can feel into the nature of it.
Whatever you're thinking, does it feel tight and compressed? Then it's a lie. Then it's your ‘not self’. Your Higher Self never has that perspective about your current place in time, because it knows exactly why this place in time was so necessary.
I was talking to a client who wants much higher revenue in her business. And I had to ask her, “Do you have the capacity for higher revenue, at this point in time? If you've got this influx of clients that you wanted, is your business set up to handle that? Are you set up to receive that? Is your nervous system calm enough to be able to step up in that way?”
Because if not, good. That's good to know. Because that's what we get to work on now. And then, isn't that beautiful? “I am creating that capacity. This thing felt uncomfortable, I'm creating that capacity for my future. Putting these systems in feels really tedious, but I'm creating that capacity. And that feels fun.”
Maybe some of you out there have some very extreme circumstances going on, and you’re like, “Jenna, it is not possible to find the silver lining in this or to enjoy the moment of this.” I'll just say that I'll be sharing these stories in other episodes. But there have been some very extreme circumstances in my life that I did not want to be in. And yet, finding the acceptance and even the beauty in those moments, was what allowed me to finally move through them. Enough said. To be continued.
Number six, I had noted this down as separate but it's very similar to what I was just talking about. I think they flow into each other. What I wrote was, “Accept what is, because resistance is so painful.” We don't want to do this in a gaslighting way, where we just refuse to let ourselves feel human and feel bad.
Hopefully, if you were able to get these tips for 20-year-olds, when I did the earlier episode, you've already been doing a fair share of life coaching type mindset work at this age. But even if you have, I sometimes feel like this is the final piece, right? The final piece that we know in theory, and yet is challenging, deeply challenging to integrate.
And so, whether it's circumstances in your life or interpersonal relationships, accepting what is, is such a beautiful emotional release. I feel it myself when I'm in resistance, how painful that is, versus when I'm in acceptance. Now, acceptance doesn't mean condoning. It doesn't mean you condone what's going on.
If this is kind of breaking your brain a little, I recommend that you listen to my episode on mental toughness. But it's really recognizing that this is the situation. That statement alone has saved me so many times.
My brain is saying, “But it shouldn't be. But they're doing it wrong. I deserve it by now. But it's supposed to have been like this.” But when I can just step back and say, “This is what is,” that's when I can find some mental relief. That's when I can start brainstorming ways forward. That's when I can learn the lessons that need to be learned from the current situation. All of the gold comes from that point.
I was coaching a client recently, and part of her was like, “I can't help it, but I keep going back to the situation at work with this coworker of mine, it's bothering me so much.” I told her, “Let's coach on it. You can't separate yourself from your business. You're right, you're spending all of this time thinking about the coworker that you could be thinking about your business. And so, let's go through it.”
I think it's worth talking about here too, in terms of acceptance, because we naturally spend a lot of time thinking about relationships, and how other people should be and how they're not acting according to what we want.
I told her, there's a couple things going on. One, is that we basically all have a written manual for how everyone else in the world should behave. If you're a mother, you should act like this. If you're a romantic partner, you should act like that. If you're just a human that's driving in your car, you should act like that.
But nobody else knows what our manual is. And then, we get so angry that they don't conform to our manual, or we get our noses out of joint. We make it mean so much, right? Maybe they don't respect me. Maybe they don't appreciate me. But we can really never control what anyone else does. Therefore, we give so much of our power away to them.
The only thing we can really control is how we're thinking about this and how we're thinking about our manual. That is where the work is. The worthwhile work, because you can just live so much freer.
Then the second thing is just being able to, again, observe your brain and realize that they push the button, but the button was already there. So, maybe they're showing you something that you don't actually like about yourself, and you don't want to see in yourself. And so, that is why you're resisting their behavior so much.
Or maybe it's a way you were in the past, and you haven't forgiven that part of yourself yet. Again, it's easier just not to look at it, and to judge it. Or maybe there's some part of that that reflects something in you that you actually want to grow into. Maybe you wish that you didn't give a fuck as much, or that you were freer sexually or whatever the thing is. Again, it's easier to reject that than to accept that part within yourself.
Because usually, at the end of the day, when we're talking about accepting circumstances or accepting people, what it really comes down to, is accepting ourselves. And my friend, this is the time of your life. If you haven't done it earlier, don't wait another day to start really healing all those bits of you, accepting your shadow sides, and your gift sides too. Because that can be really hard for us to accept. And really stepping into that self-love.
Okay, what are we on now, 6, 7, 8? I don't know. I think I told you, as well, I'm going to plan these episodes a little more loosely, and see what happens. It just means that my notebook has scribbles and numbers crossed out, and so I think we're about seven now. But this is your beauty tip for the day.
This is what I have learned watching myself in the mirror up through the age of 50, and being a keen observer of all the women around me on their own beauty journeys. My tip is that the best thing you can do for yourself is relax and love your life and have better sex. Which will all naturally happen
if you get into the practice of relaxing your nervous system. Which is what I talked about in the earlier episode.
When we're in the fight-or-flight stress response, it naturally brings up emotions of competition, of disconnect from our loved ones, of othering, of judging. That has a really important survival mechanism for a human that's under threat.
But the relaxed nervous system allows so much more connection and objectivity, not sweating the small stuff, gratitude, and all the juicy things that put our bodies in places where they can shed the toxins, release the frown, and regenerate all those collagen cells. I don't know. Not my area of expertise, just what I've witnessed and what I want to share with you.
For one little practical tip, for those of you who are like, “Give me a practical tip, damnit.” Exfoliate, girl. My very favorite one is from Paula's Choice. It's the leave-on 2% BHA (beta hydroxy acid) liquid exfoliant. It has salicylic acid in it.
That not only helps you, in the short term, look like you got a really great night's sleep. But it also helps with cell turnover for the long run. And it just really helps your makeup go on really smoothly. Again, no affiliate links, just sharing something that works.
Another point I've thought of, it's really important, I have to add this one too. That in order to live a truly satisfactory life or even a marginally satisfactory life, for me and a lot of people like me, I think even for it to be marginally satisfactory, you are going to have to do a lot of disrupting of patterns from generations past, and creating a new way forward.
That will feel very uncomfortable. It has just fallen on our shoulders, thankfully. Thanks to the tools that we have available, our ability to really see our minds, and see inconsistencies in gender roles. All the data that we have, all the benefits, all the possibilities for women to create companies or work outside the home.
All of those beautiful possibilities have created this opportunity/burden for women today, to really be the disruptors and to do things differently. Specifically, I'm thinking about this in two realms. One is in marriage, cohabitation, romantic relationships. Specifically for heterosexual relationships. Maybe the same thing happens in same sex relationships, I can't comment on that directly. So, I'm just going to go with what I know.
And then the other, is with child rearing. In both of those realms, what happens that you may not be prepared for, is that when you enter into those, a whole bunch of strange behaviors start getting kicked up within you.
You'll find yourself, unfortunately, so many times reverting to things that you saw your mother doing, or your grandmother doing. There's a book that I already mentioned, called Patriarchy Stress Disorder. In that book, she was really calling that out. That phenomenon where something sort of clicks when we get into a traditional relationship. It was definitely true for me.
When I was dating, I never let my boyfriends pay for anything. I was extremely independent. I think I held really great boundaries. I always owned my own homes. And then, when I got married, or when I started living with my soon-to-be husband, now husband, Ben, it was as if the little homemaker in me just came up, reared her head, and started taking over.
Now from the outside, I don't think my mother would have seen it that way. But it was definitely distinct behavior for me. I noticed all sorts of strange things. Like he would say, “Do you know if we have any more ketchup?” And I'd be like, “Oh, yeah, let me get it.” I'd hop up, and I’d think, “Why the fuck am I getting up to get the ketchup?”
To his credit, I don't think that he was expecting me to get the ketchup. I think before he got up, he was wondering if I happen to know. But when I would go back and analyze so many moments like that, I started realizing that it was so much more comfortable for me to just hop up and get the thing quickly, than it was for me to sit there and look him in the eye and be like, “Yes, we do.” Then, watch while he got himself up from the table.
I know this seems inconsequential, but it expands into so many other things. All of the emotional labor that women have been shown to carry. All the planning. All the keeping track of things. And when you add children into the mix, it just amplifies completely.
And so, for this, I just want to say, it's possibly coming for you. If it does, and if these things feel uncomfortable, especially for… I know many of you, as you're building your business, it feels uncomfortable to have your partner take over new responsibilities around the household. Or to have him watch the children.
And it’s so fun, my coach, Katherine Morrison, just recently said, “When you're asking your husband to watch his children, that is not a favor.” Do you? And I love that. Because so many of the things we ask for, if you notice the energy in your body, it can frequently lean into the, “Could you do this favor for me? Could you do this for me?”
That just goes straight to our deep, deep belief, that we would never even quite articulate, that this is our job. That we should be doing this. That this is what a good woman does. This is what a good mother does. This is what a woman that has her shit together does, right? That is able to manage all these things, and remembering to bake the brownies for the function, or bring the thing for the potluck.
If you were to chart out everything that you do, and everything that you're keeping track of, it's heavily weighted, studies have shown, to the woman. But if I hadn't been willing to move through that discomfort, start to make some changes, and ask for changes around here. Back even in the time when I felt like it was uncomfortable for me to ask because I wasn't earning as much as my husband.
If I hadn't been able to do it then, then I would never be at the point now where I am making twice, probably more than double, what my husband makes. That only happened because we were able to work together. So often he was completely open to it. He's always been open to it.
It was me, that had thoughts in my head about what it meant. Was making all sorts of meaning about me not being the mother that my mother was or his mother was, and I should be able to handle this, and I should be able to do it all myself.
I'm so thankful to that earlier version of me that started doing this difficult work. I just want to share that with all of you, that it is difficult work. It's uncomfortable work to break all the patterns and all of the generational legacy that we're carrying up until this point. It should feel challenging, because it's a big fucking deal.
It goes for parenting, as well. We are now reparenting ourselves as we're parenting our children. We're realizing that so many of the things that get us triggered, that they really aren't about us and them. So much of it is just about all of the meaning that we have carried forward about how children should act, how children should be raised.
One of the biggest turning points in my experience of how I've been raising Dylan, was when I started thinking about it in this broader historical context, and started realizing that it's always difficult to raise children. It's more difficult to raise children in this society nowadays where…
There was an article put out by the New York Times that talked about how statistically, working moms nowadays spend more concentrated time with their children than stay at home moms did in the 70s. That’s because in the old days, you just shoo your kids out the door and tell them to go play, and then maybe you'd see them again at dinnertime.
That adds a layer of difficulty. Then on top of that, you are really changing so much of your brain’s conditioning and wiring so that you can create a more satisfactory life. So that you can make this monumental change in the world.
Think about how the world changes, when we're able to raise children with less shame than we grew up with ourselves. Think about how the world changes when we're starting to create a society where we are less stressed, where we are balancing, fulfilling work in the world with also being able to take care of our bodies and our minds.
Think about when we've done that ourselves, how we're able to share that then with our clients. And create that ripple effect that goes out in the world where more and more people, even those just watching us, can learn from our example, and start to make some of those choices for themselves too.
All of these micro decisions create monumental change that we get to be a part of. I just want to stand with you in solidarity as you go through it, and also encourage anyone entering this phase of life, any woman entering this phase of life, to lean into this.
You are doing very, very important stuff. You're not being selfish. You're not being lazy. You're not trying to shirk responsibilities. You're doing the best you can with the tools you have, envisioning a way life could be and working your way there. I honor that in each and every one of you.
All right, my friends, this is what I have for you. I hope it was helpful. Remember, you know who you are, and each day you're stepping further into what you're here to create.
Hey, if you want true clarity about your secret sauce, your people, your best way of doing business, and how you talk about your offer, then I invite you to join us in the Clarity Accelerator. I'll teach you to connect all the dots, the dots that have always been there for you so that you can show up like you were born for exactly this.
Come join us and supercharge every other tool or tactic you'll ever learn, from Facebook ads to manifestation. Just go to TheUncommonWay.com/schedule and set up a time to talk. I can't wait to be your coach.
Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the Clarity First Strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit TheUncommonWay.com. See you next time.
Enjoy the Show?
Don’t miss an episode, follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.
