The Working Mums Podcast

Ep #67 - Switching Off Is a Skill (Not a Button)

• Nicky Bevan

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Taking time off shouldn’t feel like a panic attack waiting to happen—but for so many working mums, it does. 

In this episode, I share how my own brain spirals before holidays and how I gently (but firmly) coach myself out of it. If your brain freaks out whenever you try to slow down, this one's for you. 

You’ll learn how to listen to your thoughts without believing them and how to redirect your mind with compassion—not control. A powerful listen for anyone who's ever said, “I just can’t switch off.” 

You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingMumsLifeCoach

If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.

You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach

Speaker 1:

Welcome, welcome to this pizza podcast, and I'm taking a week off. So for those of you that have children at school, you will know that next week well, here in the UK anyway, next week is half term and I've booked the whole week off. And it's really interesting whenever I come up to a break, and I wanted to share this with you so that you could have an understanding that you are not alone when your brain does this and my brain starts to tell me well, everything's going to go to shit. If you're not, if you're not doing something, you're not going to earn any money, your business isn't going to grow. Like people are going to stop listening to you. My brain thinks no one's listening anyway, so that's kind of ironic. But my brain goes into a spiral around what's going to happen if I stop? Going to happen if I stop.

Speaker 1:

And a lot of people say to me oh, I just can't switch off, as if there's some magic switch that stops our brain thinking. And here's the reality you can't actually stop your brain thinking. Your brain is going to give you an opinion, it's going to give you thoughts about having time off. You don't have to believe the sentences that your brain gives you. And when you believe I can't switch off and you feel anxious, then anxiety has you overthinking. And because that part of our brain is negative, it's only ever overthinking negative thoughts. And because you're not being deliberate about your thinking, you don't ask to redirect your brain, you don't redirect it. Actually. Go and tell me all the good reasons why taking time off helps. And so then you're constantly thinking, you're constantly switched on and you think that that's work. That's the problem. Work isn't what makes you switch on or off. Work is what is just work. It isn't even a thing. It doesn't have emotions of its own, so it can't push an emotion into your body. So your thinking creates your overthinking. Kind of crazy when you think of it like that, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

So here's what I do as I'm going into my week off. First of all, I understand and expect my part of my brain to freak out a little bit and I accept that without judgment, without criticism. I don't try and fight with it. I don't try and force myself to think any differently. I just with a learnt compassion. I have learnt and I say that so fucking deliberately because I have had to learn how to be kind to myself. I have had to learn how to be compassionate with that internal dialogue in my brain. It did not and does not come easily to me. So it is a learnt skill and I say that deliberately learnt, because if I can learn it, you can learn it.

Speaker 1:

And here's how you just start listening, without judgment, without belief attached to it, with a bit of humor, that maybe your brain is just talking bollocks, maybe. Because then what happens when you don't believe your thoughts? Then when it does say stuff about work, you don't have to attach to those thoughts, you can just let them float on by. And for me that sounds like yeah, I hear you. Yeah, maybe people will stop following me. Yeah, yeah, I hear you, maybe we won't make any money, because you know that not be true. So you get to be okay with your brain, part of your brain not being okay. That's the difference between you in your emotional childhood state and believing everything that your brain tells you, versus being in your emotional adult state, where you're starting to take responsibility of what you're deliberately choosing to think about. And when you do that from compassion, your brain takes that redirection really well. So it could sound like OK, brain. We very deliberately chosen to have this time off. That was on purpose, deliberately chosen to have this time off. That was on purpose.

Speaker 1:

So, instead of thinking about work, I want you just to come over here a second and I want you to think about how do I want to decorate my house? What are we going to do if the weather's nice? I want you just to come over here a minute, brain, and tell me, go out and think of a solution to this problem that I'm trying to figure out. Or I'm curious, brain. Could you come over here a minute, brain, and tell me, go out and think of a solution to this problem that I'm trying to figure out? Or I'm curious, brain, could you come up with a reason, you know some way to overcome this and then let your brain do that? It's not necessarily going to come up with the idea straight away, it's usually the next morning in the shower. But when you direct your brain in that way, it's got a job to do and it loves to have a job and it's like yes, nikki, I'll go off and I'll think about this for you. Or I'll go over here and I'll think about this. Or, oh, let's get excited about what we're going to do in the office move, because that's what I'm going to be doing with my time off. I'm going to be moving offices, I'm going to be going downstairs so my son both my sons then have a room to themselves because they're sharing at the moment.

Speaker 1:

So when my brain starts to freak out about oh my gosh, you know you're going to, you're not going to make any money and you're going to, people are going to stop following you and all the drama and all the negatives, I'm like or maybe they won't and let's spend time thinking about the colours that we're going to paint our wall. Or let's have a little think about how we could lay Blue's room out. Or let's have a little think about you know where we could go if the weather's nice, we might go away camping for a night. Let's have a look at that instead. Or, if you find that really challenging, just listen with pure fascination. Look at where my brain goes. Isn't that interesting?

Speaker 1:

Because your thoughts are not a problem when you realize they are not facts, especially things that are ahead of us in the future. So our brain is not. It doesn't speak the truth. That initial response, that initial dialogue that it tries to give you, is not telling you factual information, especially when it's about the future, especially when it's about a scenario that you're spinning and worrying about. Scenario that you're spinning and worrying about it doesn't predict the truth, and you will know this because you would have experienced this already in your life, where your brain has told you this is going to happen, this is going to for sure they're going to kick off, and you know everyone's going to think you're shit or whatever. And then they don't and it doesn't happen. So you've got evidence in your life to prove your brain doesn't speak the truth. You're just still continuously believing that it does, and that's what's causing you pain.

Speaker 1:

Now, sometimes it might come up with something really valuable, or actually something that you do want to take into account. So then you could be like, oh brilliant, thank you for that brain, I'll put something in place to either prevent it or whatever. You know, if you're going on holiday and you're like, oh my God, I might get sick or my kids might hurt themselves, okay, that's fine, let me pack some painkillers, let me pack some plasters. That could be helpful. You could actually use that negativity for an empowering planning, but not when you're beating yourself up. So I've done episodes like this before.

Speaker 1:

But the reason why I quite like talking about it repetitively is because the more you hear it, hopefully, the more it will start to sink in that dialogue in your head. Those thoughts that it instantly gives you may not be true. Your thoughts are not facts. So even when your brain offers you a sentence, you do not have to take it and believe it to be true. If it's giving you a sentence that helps you, great, keep it, own it. But if it's not helping you, very lovingly, with a lot of compassion, redirect yourself.

Speaker 1:

And the way that I started to create that skill of that internal dialogue was through telling myself that we're learning how not to talk to ourselves that way. Remember, sue, we don't do that anymore. Sue's my primal brain, for if you haven't followed me for a while, but Sue's my primal brain. And I just say to Sue we don't do that anymore. Sue's my primal brain, for if you haven't followed me for a while, but Sue's my primal brain. And I just say to Sue I'm learning how to be in charge now. Thank you for getting me here, but you're not going to get me there. I am, and I very deliberately had to catch myself and choose the tone of voice at which I speak to me, and you can do this because you do it with people outside of you. You wouldn't dream of talking to people the way that you talk to yourself. So you just start practicing talking to yourself the way you would talk to someone else, and you cannot switch your brain off. It's not possible. That will happen the day that you take your last breath, which hopefully is many, many happy, healthy years away.

Speaker 1:

So the goal is not to stop our brain thinking. The goal here is to stop ourselves believing what our brain is thinking, and that's a skill that you get to invest in and learn. Should you want to, and if you want to look at the frequently asked questions page on my website, that will answer all of your questions. If there's not a question on there that I have answered, get in touch and I will answer it. Or let's have a a conversation book, a consult with me and we'll just have a very informal conversation about where you are, where you want to be, and if I can help you, I will let you know in that session. Have the most amazing week I'm going to be off, so the first, the next podcast you hear from me won't be next week, it will be the following week. Have the most incredible week. Take care, bye-bye.