In this episode Bianca is joined by Amy C. Willis and Michelle Cruz to talk about a hidden source of rage for many folks who identify as women: the neglected need of choosing you.
As women, we are socialized to always be of service to others and to leave ourselves last, which of course leads to burnout, depression and can even drive some to the trenches of addiction and suicide. Bianca, Amy and Michelle help us identify the many places where we can start choosing ourselves. They guide us through some of the challenges we might face and they remind us of the wonderful treasure that we will find on the other side.
- Choose You Menu
- Michelle's blog post "Choosing Yourself Isn't Selfish"
- Sign up for our upcoming free webinars
- "Come As You Are" by Emily Nagoski
- Bebo Mia Book Club
subscribe to receive updates here!
www.bebomia.com
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Twitter.
In this episode Bianca is joined by Amy C. Willis and Michelle Cruz to talk about a hidden source of rage for many folks who identify as women: the neglected need of choosing you.
As women, we are socialized to always be of service to others and to leave ourselves last, which of course leads to burnout, depression and can even drive some to the trenches of addiction and suicide. Bianca, Amy and Michelle help us identify the many places where we can start choosing ourselves. They guide us through some of the challenges we might face and they remind us of the wonderful treasure that we will find on the other side.
- Choose You Menu
- Michelle's blog post "Choosing Yourself Isn't Selfish"
- Sign up for our upcoming free webinars
- "Come As You Are" by Emily Nagoski
- Bebo Mia Book Club
subscribe to receive updates here!
www.bebomia.com
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Twitter.
If I say "no", it's not from a hatred place. It's from a self preservation. And that's a skill I had to learn. Cause I'll say, you know, 2019 and before homegirl was saying yes, till I would die. I'd be like, bare knuckles climbing through the forest for someone to bring them their water bottle.
Bianca:She's belly crawling like a soldier y'all you can see her, but she's belly crawling like a soldier.
Michelle:You know, imagine barbed wire and bombs going up and I'm like, "I have your bottle! Don't worry. Teacher here's your gift card. Thank you for watching my toddler. Oh, you know, and now I'm like, here are the kids. What's your Venmo? Okay, bye.
Narrator:You are listening to the Hot and Brave podcast with Bianca Sprague from Bebo Mia, where you hear brave stories, hot topics, and truth bombs that will either light fire to your rage, or be the balm you need for your soul.
Bianca:Hello, everyone. Welcome to season one of the Hot + Brave podcast. We have been counting down the days for this season to kick off over here at Bebo Mia. And we are very excited to start with an interview we have with Amy C. Willis and Michelle Cruz. And we are gonna be talking about choosing ourselves. We've called it "Choose you", cuz it's kind of like Ralph Wiggum"Choose, choose, choose you." We all had a kick outta that. Anyway, we wanted to talk about this because we have noticed with our students and our alumni, as well as just our fellow birth workers and change makers out in the world that there's this constant struggle of trying to fit in self care and not self care in the traditional way of manicures and pedicures, if that's part of it, that's cool, but like really choosing what we're trying to do. And we're trying to change the face of reproductive health and justice. And if you even wanna think of like the smaller scale, you wanna make sure folks are feeling safe as they go through their fertility, pregnancy and parenting journeys. And yet, we are forced to just do this incredible life changing and life saving work in our like 15 minutes between nap time or trying to squeeze it in on our drives to school meetings and swim lessons. And so we wanted to talk about how can we be more intentional about choosing ourselves and why this is so so important and the actual global impact this can make if we start with these little tiny steps. So first, hi Michelle. Hi Amy.
Michelle:Hello
Amy:Oh, hello.
Bianca:Hello. Thank you for jumping on and talking about this topic that I know all three of us feel very, very, very passionate about. Michelle: Yeah, this, this topic my life and how I guide my clients and my friends into there's so much more than just everybody else. You matter. I think that phrase gets left behind, like, and Amy knows this. My huge thing is like, "you are enough" and that plays right into "choose you." Because if you're not valuing yourself, you're not gonna choose yourself. You'll choose everybody else. And then you're left behind and exhausted at the end of the day. For sure, for sure. And I, I think Amy is a really important voice in this conversation. Yes, she is childless. So it comes from a different perspective and she uses it as a critical tool to support folks who identify as women through their sobriety journey. And so both of the circumstances of recovery, as well as reproductive justice have an element of, you know, your life depends on it. And so, Amy, I'm really glad that you can come and share some of those tools that you would work with your clients, use while working with your clients. Um, and I think it's a really, really important, um, different angle that could potentially have that you know, we hear the same information a bunch of times and you hear it one other time from a different way. And you're like, "oh, mm-hmm, that landed for me". So thanks for bringing your wisdom here.
Amy:Y'all I'm excited to be here. I can't wait to chat. I love this topic.
Bianca:Yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one. And this made season one, because it's a source of rage. And for those of you, you might not even identify it as your source of rage. And this is something that Amy and I talked about in the summer Sizzler about, um, getting really clear of like why we feel so mad. And so I know, like, I feel angry listening to the people in my life, whether they're students, alumni, um, because I'm like, "Ooh, that's shitty! You're being either taken an advantage of!" Or you need to go rest cuz you're sick or like, did you just hear that you had to like ask for your husband to babysit or something, but it just like rolls off the tongue and it just becomes part of the wallpaper. Um, so we thought this also might support folks in A) identifying why they're mad and doing some very, like some of these changes are really, really simple. They're not always easy, but they are simple shifts that can, you know, you can find a lot of time that you, you might even have so much time. You don't even know what to do with it. Could you imagine,
Michelle:Oh my God, the amount of time would be insane. I think too, with it being a rage source, people are stuffing it down.
Bianca:Yeah.
Michelle:They're stuffing it down until they explode. And then that's where like, oh my gosh, that's why I've been mad the last 10 years. That's why I've been mad and can't sleep at night. This is why I feel sick to my stomach at, you know, at XYZ point of the day mm-hmm it's cause they they're, they're so full of rage because they've been putting themselves last.
Bianca:For sure.
Michelle:All of the time for years on end and being told"that's what you're supposed to do! We expect you to be last, no matter what you're going through".
Bianca:Yeah.
Michelle:Point in case there are people who have cancer and have other life threatening ailments, and they're like,"oh no, I'm still doing these things." Like you're not taking care of yourself. You just had chemo go rest. Go take care of yourself.
Bianca:These kinds of scenarios might sound familiar. So I know I hear all the time from our students. They might have to have a consult with a client and in order to take those three hours on a Thursday evening, they have to make sure dinner is ready ahead of time. The pajamas are laid out. They've, you know, done all the stuff, laid out, done all the forms, made sure homework's done. The lunches are packed. They've walked their husbands through all of that. Um, they've like, you know, made these promises of what tomorrow morning's gonna look like. They've asked permission three times. They've had to do five reminders and that's just getting out the door. On the drive over on the bus or in the taxi or walking, they get the texts that they don't know where the toothpaste is, or the kids are fighting or they can't find the diaper cream and you said to put it on. And so now not only are they like not even in that environment, but they're continuing to have to provide all this care and support to the caregiver that they've had to like do a mountain of work, literally just to get three hours at the door to go do another job. And even if it's not another job, even if they literally wanted to go like lie in the park and read, which I've just never heard somebody even consider doing that in our communities. Um, but it's like, they're doing this to go do their job versus their husbands get to just go do their job and then either come home or not come home, if something comes up and they're like, "oh, we're actually gonna like grab a bite after the meeting", they just like continue out on their thing and there's no prep required. And so when we look at these kind of situations, which we hear all the time, it feels impossible. You don't even know what it looks like to choose you because in that you're like, well, I did, I did choose to like, I get to have this other job or I get to go to the consult and we hear that kind of language. And so we want it to have like, you know, really get clear on what does it mean to choose you? Because it can feel really hard when there's so much noise, um, you know, to weed through all of that. So Amy and Michelle. When we say, let's talk about choosing you, what does that look like?
Michelle:Well, it's not selfish. it's not selfish at all. And that's the first thing is like, if I choose somebody else, then I'm being selfish. I'm giving myself everything. And also too, I will say, folks will say, oh, you're gonna go spend money. There's a money attachment to it. Which comes with shame. It's like, oh, you're gonna spend all the money on your self care. Well, it's like, no, it's not. And also, money is a form of movement through life. We're gonna spend money on things. So investing in hobbies and things, investing in whatever you want in life. And I mean this in a serious sense, like if you're wanting peace, you have to invest in peace. And some will say, "Oh, your kids are crying. Why aren't you taking care of them?" Um, that's okay. They can cry. Like it's right. They're gonna survive. Mm-hmm um, if the, the primary parent doesn't survive, then we're left with nothing or being said the primary human in the house. If you don't have children, if you don't survive, we're left with nothing. And that pain is what no one's prepared for. And then when it happens, they're like, holy crap. I had no idea they were hurting so bad.
Bianca:Mm-hmm
Michelle:Not to be morbid, but like, that's the truth of where we're at.
Bianca:No, it's powerful, michelle. It's not morbid. It's true. And it's powerful. And Amy sees folks in the throws of addiction from this exact issue. And I would like to flag seeing as September is suicide prevention month, that suicide is one of the leading causes of death for mothers. Like, just take a beat for that. It is one of the leading causes of death right now. And this is why. It's not enough sleep. There's no time to stop. There's rage that's being stuffed down and we're running into mental health crisis or into issues with addiction. So, Amy, what is your thought on this? Choosing you and the selfishness of it and, all these things.
Amy:Yeah. Yeah. So I think there's... And I think we touched on some of this in the episode that you and I did Bianca, where we talked about what it means to be a good woman and how conditioned we all are to show up in service of other people to make everybody comfortable. The assumption is that we're all available. Our time is everybody else's. And so any time we deviate from that, so if that's like, I'm gonna go read a book in the grass. And that's just an activity just for me, not in service of somebody else. We're viewed as not a good woman, not a good mother, not a good partner and it, and it is interpreted as selfish. And so I think we need , there's a lot of rewriting and reprogramming and unlearning that we need to do to recognize that taking time for yourself, actually identifying what your needs and wants are and making it okay. And giving yourself permission to do that stuff is not only in service of you, but also in service of everybody else. Right. Nobody is winning as Michelle said, like, and, or, you know, to your point around suicide, being the lead leading cause of death for mothers and women, like no one's winning when women are suffering. And I see it in my work all the time, you know? Yes, women come to me for support around sobriety, but usually alcohol serves as a temporary solution to the problem. And the problem is, not having boundaries, not prioritizing ourselves, leaning into people-pleasing behaviors, like all of this stuff. And it's not about blame. It's like adaptive to our environment. Um, but usually it's all that stuff that gets us in trouble. Right? When we have no relief in our lives, we look for something like alcohol or whatever it is.
Bianca:Mm-hmm. Yeah. And these, these are all more complicated also, depending on what buckets of marginalization we sit in. Yeah. So these are complicated by class. These are complicated by race, by gender expression, um, fatphobia, like all of these things make all of it, you know, worse and
Michelle:oh yes,
Bianca:worse and worse and worse.
Michelle:I can go on for an hour alone on the black community and choosing yourself and how it's viewed as this insane thing. If you do something simple as like, not fix your man a plate, it's like, "Oh! Oh, my God!" I'm like, yeah, in my house, you fix your own damn plate. Okay? Like I'm hungry, the food is hot, I'm eating first. You're gonna have to wait, you know?
Bianca:Yeah.
Michelle:Um, so that's, that's its own thing. And like, culturally, like there are some aspects where it's like, you're expected to do certain things.
Amy:Mm-hmm
Michelle:And I see my privilege in my relationship and the fact that I have partner and a husband that will say,"No, dear God, go to bed, Michelle." And I'm like, okay, that sounds great. And like, he like closes the door and says, you like, "just please go." And I'm like, okay, great. But for some folks, I'd say the majority, 95% don't have that. And that time that we need that push. And sometimes that accepting the cultural othering, like being accepting that we are not gonna fit into our culture as we would expect to fit is even harder to accept, I'd say. And so if you're in those buckets and you're like, holy crap, I'm the only one in my family choosing myself. That is okay. It's a rough hill to climb, but is the best hill to climb for yourself because you'll feel so good after.
Bianca:I would like to flag another one is, um, fems who don't like domestic labor or being in the kitchen. Oh, it's also very weird. I would happily sit on the couch and chat while Thanksgiving dinner is being made or, you know, fill in the blank. And, um, that's always looked at, is really strange. And I was like, oh, that's not a place I go. That's not for me in there.
Michelle:You're not baking?! You're not baking something? You're not cooking something?
Bianca:Yeah. And it's not like I'm incompetent. I could survive if I had to make my own food and I love food and I love eating. Um, but that's not a place that I go. That's not for me in there. And that's always like "gasp!" when you are a, um, when you're a fem. And yeah, that's great. Um, so yeah, we do wanna flag that there's a lot of complicated factors in this. So, so when we come to these forks in the road and we have to make these choices, I think sometimes we can't even identify when they are. So we're like choose you. And it's really hard cuz those seem really abstract. And so a lot of times when people, you know, might wanna start adopting some of the practices, which we will support you with, we have some tips for this. Um, but we don't even know when we're at that juncture where we have to make a choice that we could, you know, we can't always see the options because we go a little bit into autopilot and that's our brain's way of preserving energy. As we kind of coast through our day. Let's identify some of those places of like, you know, how do we know if we're at one of those places where we can choose us or not as, you know, the baby steps to just start noticing them. At first, I don't even think you need to do anything. I think you just need to notice that this could be one of those ones you could explore further. So how do you guys know when you're at one of those junctures? Is this for me or is this for somebody else?
Michelle:I usually feel it in my body. I usually have that sense where I'm like, okay, my sleep meter's at a four, outta of 10, my rage is at a nine, outta 10. I'm hungry. I didn't get any... I'm touched out is the phrase I usually use. I didn't get any personal space. Um, and I've made changes to help that, but it usually happens, I'll say for me, it's like almost like the witching hours. You know, like say for babies, like, you know, between like 4:00 PM and 6:00 PM. I usually, I. I'm not doing X, Y, Z. I'm not making dinner. Like last night I legit was like, I'm not making dinner. I refuse. I'm like, and it wasn't until 9:00 PM that my husband's like, you have to eat something. I'm like, I don't have interest in cooking for myself or anyone. And that's just what it is. I find that I have to choose myself and sometimes it's like, I need to be with my family, but just not doing something for them. And that is almost weird. Cause folks like, oh, you have to do self-care, you have to be alone. No one says you have to be alone.
Bianca:Mm-hmm
Michelle:I just don't wanna participate in whatever it could be. Or I want to, in my own way. But usually it's that sense in my body. I'm like, oh no, no, no. If I do that, this is gonna be bad. And what I mean bad is like, I'm gonna feel worse the next day. My emotions are gonna be out of control. I may explode in a way with the twins that I don't want to exchange with them, you know, which I'm like, they're five, they don't need to have rage-mommy. You know? They see her, they know what she looks like, because even my daughter was like, mom, are you doing okay? I'm like, no girl, I'm not okay. She's like, you need to go color. I'm like, yes, ma'am I need to go color. I'm like, if my five-year-old can see it, I'm like, I will take your advice and go hang out with my markers in my office, you know? But it's physical. And I'll say, if anyone that knows me, you can see it on my face, on my body language that I'm hitting my, my limit.
Bianca:Follow up question Michelle, before Amy, you tell me yours. I hear that it feels louder when you're depleted. So if somebody called and said, we need you to bring orange slices tomorrow, it feels like you don't have space for that. Do you find that you, when you do have a bit of extra in the tank, it might not clock for you? And then you find your giving, giving, giving until you get to that depleted state?
Michelle:See, I used to be like that. I used to give all the time and there's this amazing word I learned. It's called no. And I'll say going through the MSP course and the taking the time to educate how to work with clients and how to help someone say no in, say for instance, a labor situation or a postpartum situation, with a provider helps me to say no. For instance, last week, very busy with work. There was family stuff going on. My neighbor's like, "Hey, can you pick up my kid from school?" Usually I say yes, because they go to the same school as my kid. We're two doors down, easy peasy. I was like, no, I can't do it. And usually I'd be like, filled with guilt. Like, oh, how dare I not pick up the daughter for my friend? Oh, I'm such a bad person. And I was like, no, she knows I'm busy. She knows I have things goning on in my life. And this once she says, "Okay, no worries. Talk to you next week." Chill, because I've acknowledged that if I say no, it's not from a hatred place, it's from a self preservation.
Bianca:Yeah.
Michelle:And that's a skill I had to learn. Cause I'll say, you know, 2019 and before homegirl was saying yes, till I would die. I'd be like, bare knuckles climbing through the forest for someone to bring them their waterbottle. She's belly crawling like a soldier y'all. You can't see her, but she's belly crawling like a soldier. You know, imagine barbed wire and bombs going up and I'm like, "I have your bottle. Don't worry. Here's your gift card. Thank you for watching my toddler." Oh, you know, and now I'm like, here are the kids. What's your Venmo? Okay, bye. You know, and like I walk off and just like, let them take whatever it is. Whereas before it was like almost to a point of like self degradation and like removing my dignity for myself, just to help somebody out. And that could be anybody.
Bianca:Here's your water bottle, here is your gift card!
Michelle:You know, but I'm serious! I'm not even kidding! Like I would give,
Bianca:I know, I know you're.
Michelle:Energy, items, the shirt off my back to anyone. Like point in case one night I made dinner and it tasted so bad. It was so bad. And I was like, if this is food, there's like chicken in here and vegetables and rice and Rob's like, "I'm not going to eat it." And I'm like, well, what did we do with it? We drove around for an hour trying to find someone to give it to, like homeless people. So I was like, I'm gonna give of myself. And at one point he was like, can we just go get Chinese food instead of like, trying to like remake it? I'm like, sure. But that's how I would be. I would just give, give, give, even when it was bad, you know? Like , it tasted awful, I'm like, let's just keep giving because that's how I was programmed. Like you have to give all the time, there's no opportunity for you for space. And it's mostly because I grew up in a household that was like, "you must protect the world" kind of thing. You know? It's your job to protect people. And I see that now. And I'm like, I don't wanna be burned out before 45. Like I've already been working through burnout. I've already been working through stress and exhaustion, but yeah, no, I'd... I'd legit crawl on the ground before now. It was real, real life.
Bianca:I'm glad you learned"no," I'm glad you learned "no."
Michelle:I know!
Bianca:So you can stay alive. Um, Amy, what does it feel like when you're at those junctures? Because I know you also can recognize them.
Amy:Yeah. And it looks a bit different for me cuz as you pointed out I'm child free. So I don't exist in the same, you know, systems and structures. Um, but I, you know, used to say yes to a lot of stuff that would then feel really shitty after the fact. So that I think was an indicator for me. Like I would say yes to something and then I would just like grumble about it and be grumpy and resentful and annoyed. And what I have come to learn is like, that's on me to like, communicate my boundary and practice "no." As Michelle said and actually say,"That doesn't work for me, but maybe this, this does, and this feels okay. And I can do this instead. And if that works for you then great. And if not, then catch me next time. Cuz like this time isn't gonna go." Um, so yeah, I, it very much feels like based around how I feel and if I don't feel excited about it, and if it's not a "hell, yes!", it's probably gonna be a no now. And that feels a lot better for me. And I used to also find that, you know, I would notice that I would get to a point where I was so overextended in all the areas of my life, that like a tiny thing, a tiny thing, like you said, the oranges at the soccer game or whatever, not my situation, but still the tiniest... imagine I just showed up at a random kid's soccer game with orange slices.
Bianca:T-ball
Michelle:Stranger danger!
Amy:Right? Which kid are you? None of them.
Michelle:I'm here for the moms. I'm I'm here for the moms,
Bianca:Yeah! I brought snacks for the moms. Yeah.
Amy:Um, yeah, but like the tiniest thing would feel like the biggest thing and it would immediately cause me to feel stressed and annoyed and irritated. And so those are also really strong indicators that I need to just be saying no more often. And I need to redirect my time and energy into restoring myself.
Bianca:Mine became really simple that if I get asked, I don't want to, but if I volunteer, I do. That became my limits test that I was like, I just choose to constantly scan my environment and I name what I can do. So, yeah. You know, whatever the thing is, if my friend like sounds really stressed, I'll just be like, oh, can I send food to you on your moving day? And then it's taken care of, but if I got asked to do it, it would feel not as good to me. I don't know why I've just decided that's my...
Michelle:That's a choice.
Bianca:Those are my junctures. And I, I also feel like really okay. And always have been mostly because I've existed in a state of burnout. Up until a couple years ago, pretty much every day of my adult life. So like a lot of the things that would ping as stress or shame for moms didn't ping for me. Like, I didn't really care what the other moms that the school thought about me, cuz it didn't matter. I didn't have the space to, I didn't care that they noticed I never brought something for bake sale. Or if I did, I literally bought like a thing of Oreos and was like, here you go sell these. Um, or like if I did it all, um, and you know, I just, those things never clocked for me. Like I never felt obligated to volunteer in the classroom. And the only times I did, I was like, oh, that sounds like a cool field trip. I'll sign up and volunteer for that. And then it felt okay. Um, but if I had to, if I had to, I would be like Amy said, grumbling and pissed off and I couldn't rally behind it. I'd just be mad. Um, so I think the, um, autonomy around it, no surprise for me, has to be present or it's irritating. One of the questions I wanna put forward to you guys is what would really happen if we didn't do some of the things like pack a fancy bento lunch or, I don't know, do the errands for our partner or problem solve our sister's issue with her mother-in-law which you couldn't find anything further removed from you. What would happen if we didn't?
Michelle:So I'll tell you this morning, some of these things didn't happen in my household. I don't pack fancy lunches anymore. I'm like, you're gonna get a bagged snack. Uh, you're gonna get school lunch. And I think removing that requirement of like also, I will say, all the social media makes all this worse because you see all these moms making these lunches for their homeschool children. Let me just add that. When I, when I see a fancy lunch post, I'm always like, okay, what kind of school are they going to? Is the title 1 school? If you don't know what title 1 is, is like low income. Is it a homeschool where they're not going anywhere? Also some of those fancy lunches, they are packing them for their spouses. They're packing freaking bento boxes for their 46 year old husband. Who's an accountant.
Bianca:it matters that he's an accountant. If he was a teacher that would feel different for Michelle.
Michelle:I didn't say engineer, cuz I have an engineer husband yeah. Like, you know, one kid today was like, I cannot wait for the nachos at school. I was like, perfect. Here's your water bottle. That's it. Other kid was like, I wanna bean and cheese taco. Boom. I have take out from Taco Cabana. You can take that to school. Here's some chips and nothing's cut into cute shapes and there's like less stress. And of course. Also, I will add to this, the kids don't freaking care. They just wanna be fed. They don't,
Bianca:They don't half of it anyway.
Michelle:Yes. Oh my God. That's a whole... can we have a podcast about kids not eating? It's a whole other thing. Yeah. Like they don't wanna eat. They're like, I just want my food and, you know, holding space for someone. I will tell you, me and my sister, and one my other close friends, the question of, can we have a deep conversation today? Yes or no? They'll say no, I can't. Or I'll say no, I can't. And we leave it at that. There is no like, uh, cliff notes version that comes in."Well, here's what's happening anyways. You can read this text or not." I'm gonna read the text! Like, of course I'm gonna read it. I can't not read a text. It came upon my own notifications. Like, of course I'm gonna read it, but letting people know, no, I can't have that conversation. I cannot hold space for you. You know, I'll be honest. I'll be the first person to say I'm not folding your laundry today. Like I went through a six month period where I just shoved unfolded laundry in drawers and it was the most freeing thing on the planet. Just shove a shirt and a drawer. The five-year-old doesn't care, what kon Marie taught you during the pandemic about folding a shirt. They just want the dinosaur freaking shirt and the blue shorts and the lightning bolt undies and they can go play out in the dirt. They do not care how it's folded.
Bianca:Yeah,
Michelle:Like 90% of men do not care how their socks are put together. Just throw the socks in the drawer.
Bianca:Oh man, I love this!
Michelle:Throw 'em in the drawer! I'll tell you I learned a lot. Oh no, no. I fold my clothes because it's my clothes. That's for me. Yeah. Everybody else, I took a poll. I said, who cares about folding? Nobody cared in the house. Right? That was the end of mom folding laundry.
Bianca:Oh my God. I love that for you, Michelle.
Michelle:Yeah. Yeah. And then I simplified things too. Uh, this is a whole other pause, but for the, uh, school uniforms, I took away my hall closet because who freaking needs a hall closet in Austin, Texas. It's never cold here. So I put shelves, each kid has a shelf for school clothes. I just throw the clothes in there. Stack of shirts, stack of shorts, underwear, socks. In the morning they just grab one of everything and get dressed.
Bianca:Oh my God. I love that.
Michelle:Because I don't, they don't care. And that's part of choosing me is removing the stress of trying to find the polos in the morning and the right socks, you know, it's there mm-hmm and that removes me having to explain to me things to my partner, cuz he just knows where everything's at. Also y'all know, I will not take two shits from Robert. So he can't like, come in and be like, "oh, don't know where it's at." I'm like, is it day one being a parent? No. Go find the freaking backpack. You know.
Bianca:I would like you to just pause on this cuz I know we're laughing cuz Michelle, you know, it's funny as shit. But really you guys listeners who I love, and this is not your fault. This is the patriarchy.
Michelle:Yes.
Bianca:How many of you have heard basic questions about your children this week? Or your home running this week? Basic question. Where's the sunscreen? What, where do they keep this? What, what door do we go for school drop off. What's their teacher's name? This form needs to be filled out. And if they ask for any of the fields, do they have allergies? Any of those questions. We know those are a giant, giant red flag lights going off fireworks that there's a problem of a lack of equity in your home. And so I listen all the time to my friends who are like,"oh, he's a really good dad." And I was like, name some things for me. I actually did this at a breakfast one time. It didn't go over very well. But if we had all been laughing at a dad test on the streets, they were testing dads and they would ask them very basic questions about their children on TikTok. And most of the dads didn't know any of the answers. And so I did it with some dads at a brunch. And I said, who knows their kid's shoe size and those kinds of questions. And none of the dads knew. And I did it mostly, cuz I love highlighting the inequity when I can, because it makes me really mad. And I was like, how are you guys okay with this? And meanwhile, they sat through the brunch at the restaurant while the moms wrestled with kids and cleaned up this spilled juice and went to another bathroom trip and had the kids stick their hand in her waffles and like all of those things and the dads had an uninterrupted eating their eggs and bacon, not knowing anything about their children. So, those are the things that can indicate how you can choose yourself.
Michelle:Yep.
Bianca:So we've talked about, you know, that feeling of like, I don't really want to. Then say no. So if you don't wanna volunteer in the PTA, you say no. If you don't wanna bring the popcorn to movie night at the school gym, say no. If you don't wanna make the turkey for some holiday, say no, and everyone will figure something else out. Okay. Let's talk about the impact in our last few minutes here. Because I know that those things can feel really selfish. So as we were talking about this prepping for this podcast this week, we talked about highlighting what could feel like a motivator for y'all. It might feel really scary or selfish to say that you're no longer picking up and dropping off dry cleaning or the version that feels right for you in your life. What are some of the rewards, I should say, that might motivate some of us to adopt some of these practices?
Michelle:You'll feel so much better. You'll feel so much better. Um, I can clearly reflect on when I was in full on give mode versus now. My voice is stronger. My body is healthier. I've been able to just focus on what I want to do, which has led me to this work of being a birth worker. Whereas before I was comfortable being uncomfortable. Like, that was the phrase I used to tell "Oh, do you have a job? Do you have a passion?" Oh, I'm just comfortable being uncomfortable right now. And they'd be like what I'm like, yeah. I just, I don't have time or space for anything else right now. And it wasn't until like my eyes were opened and I saw that I was heading towards, you know, deep despair, um, that I knew I needed to break free and pick things for myself. Pick myself, choose myself before others. And that's challenging to acknowledge. And societal stuff is like, oh my gosh. And I'm like, no, I can anymore. I can't, it's just not possible.
Bianca:I wanna highlight what Michelle is doing. So Michelle has a love of giving. We all do all of us here. And, and most of you listening are drawn to doing some kind of helping work. So Michelle, in choosing making these small choices and creating the bandwidth. She actually, before where she was cycloning in of sadness and, you know, gift cards and water bottles. Instead, that shit is still happening. It just looks a bit different. The, the teachers, I guarantee all got gifts and her kids always have their water bottles. She passed it on to her partner. She passed it on to her sister and friends and passed shit back to the people so she didn't need to carry it. And now she's changing the face of reproductive justice in Austin, Texas, and she has saved lives of many, many black women and their children. She witnessed their births. She witnessed their parenting. She intervened in critical situations with harm from doctors harm, from nurses, harm from institutions, unchecked mental crises. Like that is what she now has the space to give because she does wanna give, but it has the appropriate direction, cuz she's not drowning in really small time shit. But a mountain of small time shit, and your day is gone and now she can pass off that stuff. And still, she runs a really beautiful home and she takes amazing care of her children and she spends lots of time with them, but she's living this massive purpose.
Michelle:Thank you, Bianca. That's powerful. I can't ever talk about myself like that, like ever. So
Bianca:I saw that and jumped in there.
Michelle:It's true. I mean it, legit legit is 1000% true. There's no way I could be where I'm at today and continue to be drowned in tears and drool. Like I was a couple years ago. It's just not possible. And some folks go, oh, it's cuz your kids are older. No, that's nothing to do with it. It has absolutely nothing to do with it. The fact that the kids are older or that I'm older, it's the fact that I've made choices to choose myself choices that validate my emotions and my rage. And now my passions are able to just keep growing. Without being hindered by shame, guilt, fear. Fear is huge. Also the fear of the unknown, I think when you choose yourself as powerful, it holds a lot of women back. A lot. Like, I don't know what it'll be like when I choose myself. It's freaking awesome. Like , it's freaking awesome.
Bianca:Yeah, Amy, if you could just talk about this. What's scary? Like there's some comfortability in not choosing ourselves. And I know that, that you highlight that. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that?
Amy:Yeah. Um, and I, before I say that I, before I get to that, I just wanna like offer for the folks listening, cuz it can feel really scary. Change is scary, right? It, we show up differently. We feel differently about it. It can be deeply uncomfortable. There can be guilt. There can be shame all of those things and it will impact other people. So like there is an adjustment period, but I think, you know, building on what Bianca said about what's now possible in Michelle's life as a result of the changes that she's made and choosing herself, I think that's a really helpful entry point for people. So just like take that and imagine what might be possible in your own life if you were no longer drowning with all the little shit that adds up every single day. And like, let that be fuel for you. Cuz sometimes jumping into action can be really hard, but just imagine like let your mind wander, like what would be possible if you were no longer doing the fancy lunches and you no longer said yes to shit you didn't want to. How much time and energy and space you would free up for yourself. Um, so back to what you said, Bianca, which was: comfortability.
Bianca:Yeah. Like our victim story's comfortable.
Amy:Well, yeah, that's the thing. I mean, Michelle said she was comfortable being uncomfortable and sometimes that, that discomfort or that burnout is so much more familiar and we know exactly what to expect and it's terrible and we're suffering, but we know it. Right? We know exactly what it feels like, and it's awful. And we drudge through it and it can feel like enough to keep us there because the uncertainty of change is really hard and not knowing what it's gonna look like, not knowing how to navigate those conversations, the impact it might have on other relationships. And, you know, for you Bianca you're like, I never really had the time or space to worry about what other moms thought of me. But like, I think that's,
Bianca:It was because I was so burnt out.
Amy:But I think that's like a real fear for lots of folks, right?
Bianca:Oh, it is!
Amy:What are other people gonna think?
Bianca:For sure.
Amy:And so sometimes it's like, well, they currently think I'm a great mom, even though I'm suffering and struggling privately. And that's more comfortable for me than taking a stand for myself and saying no, when they're used to me saying yes. So it can be deeply uncomfortable. And I guess, you know, and as cliche as this sounds like we get to choose our discomfort. Right. We get to choose if we wanna like stay in the old pattern of like, I'm uncomfortable because I'm burned out and I keep saying yes, when I should be saying no. Or I'm uncomfortable now because I'm trying this new thing, which actually is in service to me. And I just need to navigate the discomfort, which will eventually end, right? The thing about the burnout discomfort, that's not gonna end until you do something differently. It's only gonna get worse. Whereas the other change is like, this will feel better. Eventually I will acclimate to what this feels like, and it won't be uncomfortable forever. And I think that that's an important piece to remember.
Bianca:Yeah, that's a really, really good point. So we wanna make sure that all of you have these gentle reminders of how we can make sure we have time for ourselves. And one of the ways you can do that is joining our book club. We have coming up at the end of the month. Grab your copy of "Come as You Are" by Dr. Emily Nagoski. It's a fabulous read. Join us for one of our free webinars this month. We will be talking about doula work and informed consent. And you will hear all about our three in one doula certification, our MSP program, which starts September 22nd. So join us for one of the free webinars, you can grab your spot at bebomia.com/freewebinar. So we've made some tools to help you with this. I love we, we had the tool and then Amy named it, "The Choose You Menu", which I thought was real fun. It had a nice ring to it. So we have this as a beautiful little PDF and we have both big and small things that you can apply to just have some of the things like flagging points for you. So some of the things that you could choose that before you might have deemed a selfish or that you would've put on the list, but by the end of the day, you didn't get to them. Everything else came first, whatever it is, walking the neighbor's dog, running to the vet, picking this up, you know, whatever, all the millions of things that we have to do and that we do for other people. Um, so they're the like start small, even if you wanna start with 15 minutes a day, cuz that feels comfortable, do that. And the goal of this tool is to support our students who are going through their programs in finishing their programs. We want you to finish your program because at the end of it, you A) have a revenue stream. B) you get to do something that's yours and really empowering when you get to like, you know, follow through with your why of why you're on this, on this planet. And C) the impact is incredible. You'll be changing the lives for so many folks, if not saving their lives by witnessing their fertility, pregnancy, birth and postpartum periods. So we have, this is. It's one of our whys of why we made the "Choose You Menu". We also wanna support our alumni in finishing and building their jobs and careers and practices. And then we wanna find the people that are listening, who, you know, we might know you personally, or know your stories and those of you who we don't, we know what your experience is like. We hear it all the time and we would love to have you experience joy, to have some breathing room, to do something that it just might seem like so out there. Including doing leisure activities in your home. With your family there. It doesn't mean you always have to be leaving. That it just becomes okay that you're sitting at the dining room table scrapbooking, and that nobody else needs to be doing it with you. And this doesn't mean hand over hand that your children are as well. And that the dishes are getting done and they're all chattering around while, you're doing something that you wanna do for no other reason, except that you wanna do. I feel like that's like the utopia. If I could see that in all homes! That someone else is folding the laundry and they're talking and it's fun and it's fine. And you are just like, co-existing the way everyone else gets to in the home. That is the dream for me. And that's what I would love for all of you. So thank you, Michelle, for sharing your story so vulnerably. And Michelle is doing it so, so, so right. And it's awesome. And it's messy and it's clunky and it's a learning curve. I also wanna shout out Meg and Max Kant cuz they're another family that just wows me year over year, as, as Meg started saying no, and even this summer they've had just amazing growth as they've continued to just pass things off to folks that need to hold them so that Meg doesn't have to. So, um, just amazing work. And Amy, thank you for all the support you do for folks that identify as women. And making sure that they find joy when they might have found themselves in an extra spot of despair, due to addiction as a tool to overcome this burnout sadness and, and mental health crisis. It is not your fault to everybody. You're wonderful and perfect and whole, and I know that you do this because you love so big and you wanna take care of everyone around you. And as Michelle said, It's time to take care of yourself. So we got you. If you wanna reach out, you can always get ahold of us at info@bebomia.com. We would love to hear what happened for you if you started adopting some of the "Choose you menu". So please feel free to always share your stories and we would also love if you headed over after this interview and left a review, we'll be sending out some awesome swag for all of the folks who leave us a review. So get your free sticker today in the mail, and we would love to get your five stars and your favorite parts about our podcast episodes. Congratulations on these tiny steps to finding joy . Thank you everybody.
Amy:Thank you.
Michelle:Bye. Bye.
Narrator:Wanna keep hanging out with us? Find us at www.bebomia.com or head over to your favorite social media platform with the handle @BeboMiaInc. We will see you next time on the Hot+Brave podcast.