Even Here, Even Now: A Return to Radical Self-Responsibility

In this episode of the newly rebranded 'Even Here, Even Now' podcast, host Mara Glatzel shares her thoughts on the importance of radical self-responsibility and reconnecting with one's needs, especially in the current socio-political climate.

 She discusses the shift from focusing on the 'Needy Podcast' to embracing a more present and empowered approach towards self-responsibility and community care. Mara emphasizes the need for nurturing one's inner ecosystem to be able to contribute meaningfully to broader societal change. 

00:00 Welcome Back to the Podcast

00:36 The Importance of Self-Work

02:59 Introducing 'Even Here, Even Now'

03:23 Personal Reflections on Needs and Self-Care

06:38 Breaking the Pattern of Self-Neglect

09:40 The Value of Self-Care Beyond Productivity

12:32 The Interplay of Self and Community Care

21:51 Radical Self-Responsibility

23:30 Changes to the Podcast Format

25:32 Engaging with YOU

26:44 Invitation to Connect

You can't stay on your own side if you don't know what your needs are in the first place. Tend is a 12-week season where you'll learn to notice and name your needs, build unshakeable trust that they're legitimate, and stay by your own side, even when everything in you wants to self-abandon. 

Spring cohort starts March 27, doors close March 20—join me at maraglatz

Transcript

1:22

Hello everyone and welcome back to What Is No Longer the Needy Podcast. The first of many updates today is that over the course of the last couple of weeks and months, I have been wanting to return here. First and foremost wanting to return here but also having that feeling like climbing back into the Needy podcast as we knew and loved it was like crawling back into a jacket that just didn't fit anymore. I. And so over the course of the last, well, kind of full year honestly, but certainly the last couple of months I have been sitting with the question of, does this work, the work of identifying, honoring, and advocating for your needs, the work of rebuilding your relationship with yourself through taking radical self responsibility. The work of really owning and standing in your truth so that you are able to be in more authentic relationship with one another. Does that work still matter here and now? Does that work still matter here in this fascist? Poly crisis moment in time. And what I have come to through many, many stomping walks in the woods is that not only does this work matter, but potentially it matters even more than it did before. And that's because we acutely need one another. Our relationships are the bridge, the thing, the connection, the community that we need now more than ever, and how are we expected to be able to be in right relationship with one another, with the world around us, with the very earth itself, if we are not first in right relationship with ourselves? And so. I have, I, I, I feel honestly very enthusiastic to have settled my, my spirit feels settled in knowing that yes, even here, yes, even now, even here, even now, this work matters and it matters deeply. So when I was envisioning this, uh. Kind of rejuvenation of this podcast space. I decided to bring that concept into the podcast. So podcast is now entitled, even here, even now, an podcast with Mar Zel. So welcome. That's where you are, and I'm so excited for what is next for us. So I had mentioned a few minutes ago that I have been working with this intention for the last year, almost the last year. This, this intention came forward really strongly for me around the summer solstice last year, and this idea of, you know, even here, even now, I matter, even here, even now, my needs matter. Even here, even now. This is worth the effort. This is worth the attention. This is worth the discipline, and this has felt. Comforting. It has felt important, but it also has felt really galvanizing and I think one of the, the reasons, this is such an important phrase for me. Is that I personally am and have been one of those people who, um, finds, finds conditions outside of myself, uh, to justify putting my needs on the back burner to justify putting my life on hold. I. And for anyone out there who's familiar with that feeling of like, oh, let me just get to the other side of this project and then I'll get back to myself or let me just figure out this thing and then I'll get back to myself. Or, you know, I couldn't possibly live vibrantly and wholly and in this alive sort of way. If there was one single person on the planet who is suffering. And that, um, this is like melodramatic to say I guess, but that's quite literally how my brain has worked since I was as early as I can remember. You know, who am I to have anything? Anything. If there is one person on the planet who is going without, and. There are a lot of problems with that. Um, but first and foremost a problem for the times of right now is that that rendered me fully incapable of really being resourced to be of service to my children, to my partner, to my family, um, to my larger family. It's my community, my town, my region. To my work, to my, my clients and my students, and not giving myself what I needed, not even admitting what I needed or being seduced over and over again into this pattern of putting my needs on the outside of the work at hand, which don't get me wrong, it was good, valid, and important work. Um, I wasn't just fucking around. It was good work, but if I didn't have what I needed in order for that effort to be sustainable, it's not good work. Right? It's, um, that's not devotion, that's not discipline to the things that I say matter to me. And if the things that I say matter to me, then I have to matter to me too because I am the vessel for all of that effort. So. I am willing to imagine that this is a familiar feeling for some of you. This feeling of, oh, I'll just get X, Y, and Z thing done, and then I'm gonna like figure my shit out. Or then I'm gonna figure my relationship out, or then I'm gonna start that walking routine or, um, like eating more fruits and vegetables or like whatever your thing is. And when we constantly put our needs on the other side of a thing, it's not about the thing itself. It is about acknowledging that we are stuck in a pattern. And when we're stuck in that pattern, we are always going to find something. Something to put our needs on the other side of. And there are so many utterly valid and important, relevant reasons why we might have been taught to do that. Um, namely, you know, we're taught that our productivity and our service to others in the way that we, um, make other people feel comfortable the way that we alchemize discomfort in our very bodies. Uh, especially for those of us who were raised and socialized as a girl during childhood, the messaging is heavy that your value lies in what you do for what you produce, for what you create, for what you make happen for other people. And that you have no value unto yourself that your felt experience of your life is not even on the table, and that in fact, it's really selfish. To wanna have a good experience. And we're told so many lies about that. You know, this is just what it means to be an adult muscle link through elbow grease, getting things done. It's called work for a reason. Uh, we're told to expect less from our partnerships, right? Because that, those are the relationships that we've seen modeled. We are taught that our needs matter very little. In the scheme of things and that they are something that if we want to be so frivolous as to acknowledge them at all, we can meet them in the periphery of our lives, around the corners when nobody else needs us, AKA ever. And using all of our hard earned money through being a little worker bee cog in the capitalist system and. That our efforts to care for ourselves better be productive in and of themselves, right? Like it's okay to have needs, but only if having those needs makes you a better wife, mother, teacher, parent person. That, you know, even this very, the way that I set up this very conversation, which was a trap unto itself to lure you right in, uh, um, that if these things that you put your, your needs on the other side of matter to you, that you have to matter to you too because you are the vessel for your effort, which is true, which is absolutely true, and also your needs matter. Even when they are deliciously unproductive, your needs matter. You know the your felt experience of your life matters. When that thing that you are desiring does absolutely nothing to better you or put you in a more advantageous position or ready you to get right back into the RA race. Or, or, or, or, or, right. All of the things that we're told like you can have needs, but only if they are sanctioned needs. Right needs that make you better, needs that make you more productive, that help you biohack and life hack your way to an improved version of you. I hate all of that. And if you have been here for any amount of time, you already know that that is true. You already know that I am a, or at least I fancy myself to be a relentless advocate for your quality of life and that I am tenaciously invested in the. Ordinary magic of daily living and the energy of things in the way that you feel inside of your body as you go along and do all of the things that you do, the experience that you have inside of your skin, inside of your brain, as you grapple with your to-do list, for example, right? Or you figure out how to set a boundary or you practice advocating for what you need. My, my realm, my high interest area is inside of you, right? Your, your inner world, your inner internal experience. And I think what's so interesting is that. You know, the self, the self care industry gets such a bad rap. And you know, I see memes all over the internet. The internet that are like self care is a bunch of bullshit. Naval gazing, and the real care is community care, which like to, to be fully honest, I completely agree with, and also I am coming to this conversation. From a history of not being able to engage in community care because of what was going on inside of my internal experience, of not being able to be present, to be honest, to fully engage, to drop my perfectionism. And my masks and all of the tools and the tricks and the hacks and the things that I had picked up along the way that would enable me to belong more easily. All of the things about myself that I picked up along the way that I learned to do, to keep myself safe in relationships. And all the while having this huge appetite and this huge desire to be seen, to be known, to be heard, to be held, to be loved, and I never understood why that didn't seem possible. For me, like it just didn't seem like it was available without so much effort. And then even when I was efforting to get it, it never felt like mine because I always felt like I had to keep up some sort of scam so that nobody would see the real me. Right? Nobody would know how. Not enough I was inside and. Simultaneously keeping myself really fucking small so that I didn't overwhelm or intimidate anybody so that I didn't make anyone feel uncomfortable or threatened, and all the while not belonging to myself, not being in right relationship with myself. So the world will say. You know, community care matters. Get in community, be in community. Community will save us. And I agree with all of those things, but I also happen to agree that each and every one of us has a fair amount of work to do in our relationship with ourselves so that we are able to show up. To those conversations, to those community events, to being in right relationship with one another, and that's what I'm here for. That's what these conversations are gonna focus on, right? Being in right relationship with ourselves so that we can bring the most self-aware, whole vital. Version of ourselves to the world around us so that we can withstand the discomfort of being seen and being known, even as we ache for it, so that we can withstand the discomfort of being red, as being imperfect because of course we are, or messy because of course we are. Right. Being able to tolerate the discomfort of being in relationship with one another in a real way. In a real way, instead of the prescribed way that we may have been taught to embody. And what's interesting about this for me, especially in this current geopolitical moment, is that so much of that education, so much of our socialization is the embodiment of these structures of oppression that exists in the world around us. Of course. And that not only have we absorbed'em, but also we recreate them in our relationship with ourselves each and every day. And so I find myself really fascinated in the, the kind of interplay between the macro environment, the world that we live in, and the microcosm of the world within us, of the ecosystem within us. You know, I've been stomping around in the woods lately and really thinking about moss. I've been obsessed with moss. I was up in Halifax a couple of weeks ago and was just like, literally just leaping around exclaiming about how many different kinds of moss they have in Halifax. Like it is truly Nova Scotia is stunning and. It is lush and there is moss unlike I have ever seen. And we do have some good moss down here on the cape, but it was really incredible And part of the reason that I am so interested in, um, in Moss right now is very kind of Horton. Here's a who, if you're familiar with that, Dr. Seuss. I know we're like, not so much for Dr. Seuss anymore, but you know, if you're familiar with that, Dr. Seuss. Book where Horton finds like this tiny puff and the puff has the entirety of, uh, uh, uh, Whoville town. I'm, this is been a long time since I, uh, checked this out, so I'm, I might be getting some of the specifics wrong, but you know, there's an entire ecosystem on this tiny puff, and so horn becomes. Kind of relentlessly devoted to the protection of this tiny puff because he feels responsible for this entire ecosystem. And when I'm walking through the woods, oftentimes I'll find like these little nuggets of moss that got bounced off of, you know, the, the main chunk of moss that it's just in the road somewhere on the path and picking up these little chunks of moss and looking at it and thinking about how. An entire environment exists on this tiny chunk of moss and so to inside me. And so if there are things that I want to change or see happen differently on a global stage, on a national stage, um, even within my community. Something that I've been hyperfocused on is the ways in which I am in enacting that change in very kind of tender and visceral ways in my own relationship with myself. So, you know, if for example, I am looking at the current fascist administration here in the States, and I am thinking about the cruelty and the blatant disregard. Um, and the lack of empathy and the lack of respect for the bodily dignity of humans, right? The lack of compassion for the very crucial felt needs of humans. And, and I'm obsessively thinking about what a fucking shitty leadership model that is and how mad I am about that. And then I notice that there are ways in which I don't respect my own bodily dignity. There are ways in which I disregard or minimize or push aside my own needs. There are ways in which I have the tendency to be cruel to myself, right? If we go back to what I was talking about before about how, you know, I, for so many years was really bought into that idea that I had to pretend to be somebody that I'm not in order to belong. Well, the shadow side of that belief is that. The cruelty that there's something really wrong with me or something embarrassing about me, or something that needs to be covered up or pushed aside or hidden, because that thing makes me disposable, right? The microcosm of that belief. And so when I'm talking about taking radical self-responsibility for your relationship with yourself, this is what I'm talking about. I am talking about. How are you a benevolent leader to your own internal ecosystem? Are you caring for yourself in the way that you wish to see people broad scale cared for? Are you offering yourself the same kindness and compassion and imperfection that you wish was offered? To everyone else in the world, right? Are you presuming positive intent when you relive the moments in your life when you just find yourself going over and over and over that dinner party in your mind and beating yourself up for all of the imperfect things that you said or all of the ways that. You know, you interrupted or you didn't wait for somebody else to finish, or you said a weird thing, or you said something embarrassing, or you revealed yourself to be the absolutely delightful and imperfect human that you are. Are you cruel to yourself? Are you punishing yourself for being who and how you are? How does it feel to be inside of that ecosystem? How does it feel to acknowledge that you are the leader? Of that ecosystem, right? So that's what we're gonna be up to here on this podcast moving forward. And, you know, some things are gonna be a little bit different. I have, um, decided that I am kind of like relentlessly devoted to making this podcasting experience as humane as possible for me. As the creator of it, right, because I think part of what was hard for me about showing up here in the past was that the kind of container that I had created for the schedule or the structure, um, didn't, wasn't kind. To me as the creator, didn't take my neuro type into account, didn't take my, um, natural energy rhythms or what's sustainable for me into account. So some, some things are gonna change and those things are that I'm no longer gonna publish on a schedule. Used to publish every other week for some time. I published a couple times a month. Um, I am going to publish from now on. Sort of whenever I feel like it, um, with the intention of publishing a couple times a month. Right. But it might be a few in a week and then, you know, a break, or it might be spread out more. These podcast episodes are gonna be a combination of me communicating and hanging out with you just like this. Conversations with people that I know, adore and trust and wanna hang out with here. Wanna invite you into that experience. I am no longer gonna just interview people who reach out to me, who I don't have a relationship with. Uh, I'll either build a relationship with them to, um, I. As a starting point, or, or I'll say no. Like I really want these conversations to be, um, enjoyable for me as the podcaster. I also want to be enjoyable for the other person. I think that that rings through the interview in a way that is really just delightful to behold. And the final thing is that I want to have at least one episode a month where I'm answering your questions. One of my favorite parts of all of my programs is the q and a element. I find that this is a place where people can rock up and ask me. Questions about whatever they're confronting, whatever it is that they're, where they're stuck, what they're struggling with. And it gives me an opportunity to kind of coach off the cuff and, um, you know, to not be a perfect expert with all of the answers, but to share my knowledge, my experience, and my thoughts on the matter. So. We are gonna be doing some really fun q and As here on even here, even now. And if you have a question that you wanna ask me that you want me to answer on the podcast, I wanna invite you to email it to me at mara@maraglazel.com. Or DM me on Instagram is another way you can find me at Mara Zel. And um, yeah, I wanna invite you deeper into the conversation too,'cause I want this to be a space that is useful for you, as delightful as it is for me. So I'm gonna say about that much for now. I'm sending a lot of love your way. Welcome back and, um, I'm really excited. I hope you're excited too.