The Shadow Diaries
Real women - slightly unhinged - get real about the daily chaos of motherhood, business, relationships and everything that comes from life. From airing out the dirty laundry to actually washing it, we dive into the messy, beautiful, and hilarious reality of navigating life.
The Shadow Diaries
#57 - Why "I Just Need To Get Through This" Is A Recipe For Burn Out
The dangerous game of constantly pushing through emotions eventually backfires - just like a pressure cooker that can't contain its contents forever. In this raw conversation, Steph and Lurinda explore why our "I'll deal with it later" mentality creates a ticking time bomb of suppressed emotions that inevitably explodes on those around us.
We introduce the powerful concept of "glass and rubber balls" - a practical framework for determining what responsibilities are essential (glass) versus what can temporarily bounce when your capacity is reduced. This approach gives you permission to drop certain tasks without the weight of failure when life becomes overwhelming.
For busy parents especially, finding micro-moments throughout the day can provide crucial emotional release valves. Whether it's a quick body scan at a stoplight or playing your music instead of the kids' during car rides, these small acknowledgments prevent emotional buildup. However, we also discuss how these micro-moments can sometimes become another avoidance tactic when deeper emotional work is needed.
The conversation takes a powerful turn when we examine how our patterns affect our households. When we consistently model pushing through and suppressing emotions, we're teaching our children to do the same. Similarly, when we establish ourselves as the household managers who handle everything, we create unrealistic expectations about others intuitively knowing when and how to step in during our moments of need.
Perhaps most importantly, we challenge the one-size-fits-all approach to rest and slowdown. Your version might look completely different from what's portrayed as ideal on social media - and that's perfectly okay. The key is interrupting your normal pattern with whatever genuinely replenishes you, rather than following someone else's prescription for what rest "should" look like.
If you're caught in the cycle of pushing through, rationalizing your feelings away, or putting everyone else's needs before your own, this episode offers compassionate insight and practical strategies to break free before the inevitable explosion.
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Welcome to Unhinged and Unfiltered. Who Gave them a Mic? We're your hosts, steph and Lorinda.
Speaker 2:Warning getting triggered is not only accepted, but encouraged here. This podcast will dive deep into conversations that make you really think about life. No top level BS here.
Speaker 1:Where real women get real about the daily chaos of motherhood, business relationships and everything that comes from life. From airing out the dirty laundry to actually washing it. We dive into the messy, beautiful and hilarious reality of navigating life.
Speaker 2:Tune in for unfiltered conversations, practical tips and tools that actually work and are easily applied, and a whole lot of laughs as we navigate the ups and downs of being a woman together. Welcome back to the pod. Today we wanted to have a bit of a chat about the push through, slash, rationalize and logic culture. So I was talking to a client yesterday and she, like she's, she was having a moment because her partner's just gone away for an extended period of time, she's got one child and she works, and she was, like you know, like I just had to like get all this stuff done today and I just had to push through it and just get her into bed and then I could kind of fall apart. And the problem with that is that unfortunately, she was a pressure cooker in that moment because she was, you know, going through the motions and she had a lot on her plate and she did not get the child into bed before she snapped.
Speaker 2:And this happens so often because it's that whole.
Speaker 2:I'll deal with it later, I'll deal with it later, I'll deal with it later, or oh, but I don't have the right to feel that way because this person has it worse, because this isn't that bad, because I've it before, because I know I'm capable, because, like, insert fucking reason here, right, and this comes, I think, from the whole, like when we were kids, when we were upset, ask like, getting like, well, why are you upset, what's wrong with you?
Speaker 2:And then getting well, that's not a good enough reason, you know, dust it off, princess, keep fucking going. Anyway, what I said to her was going. Anyway, what I said to her was cool, you might need to push through, but I don't think you have the capability to, not because she's not an extremely capable human she is but simply because there's too much on her fucking plate, most of which cannot be taken off at the moment because she's solo parenting. She has a lot on her plate and I introduced this concept to her, called glass and rubber balls. I did a post about this a little while ago and it's like you need to work out, in these periods where your capacity is reduced for whatever reason, work out in these periods where your capacity is reduced for whatever reason, what you can drop, aka a rubber ball that will bounce, that you can pick up again later and what will shatter.
Speaker 2:I love that. It's a really great tool to use and I give this to a lot of my clients. This is also one of the many, many, many, many tools in my group program as well. But just really considering things where it's like maybe you are the type of person who's very house proud, you like your house clean, but you don't have the capacity every single week to keep it spotless because maybe the kids are sick, maybe you're picking up more work, maybe your partner's away, maybe you're sick, like, maybe you're just having a fucking week and you're just like, oh my God, I just don't want to do anything. So, knowing what your glass balls are, aka the bare minimum, aka the things that you need to put the effort into, maybe you can cope if, like, the laundry is not folded and you can just shove it into your laundry room and close the door and you can deal with that. But you can't handle the floors being dirty. So then just do the floors. You don't also have to fucking fold the washing. Just live out of baskets. It's fine. I've been doing it for years. Rubber ball for me. Clearly I don't even know if it's a fucking ball at this point honestly, but it is that sort of ability to do that. However, I digress. Just a little tool for you there if you need it.
Speaker 2:But what we need to realize is that by pushing through, pushing through, pushing through, you are playing a very dangerous fucking game. It's like a brain aneurysm. Dangerous fucking game. It's like a brain aneurysm. It's going to rupture at some point and you cannot stop it. When you hit that, when it gets too full, there's nothing you can do. It's going to spill over and it is going to be molten fucking lava on everybody around you. Lava on everybody around you.
Speaker 2:When we are aware and we're like oh okay, I do have a lot on my plate at the moment, there is a lot going on, life is feeling very full. I feel like I'm kind of a bit of a ping pong ball at the moment. I need to work out a way to relieve this pressure a bit, and this is not going to be a fucking full package at a spa day or out at the spa, whatever. This is not going to be. I remember speaking to Caitlin one day and she told me that she just sat in process for four hours. I was like what? I'd be lucky if I had four hours a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everyone is so different. It's so interesting when you're saying that, but I feel like one of the main things that people would probably say to you is but I don't fucking have time micro moments, man you do like.
Speaker 2:This is the thing. This is the fucking thing that you need to remember. If you do not make time, time will make you. It is going to blow. You cannot fucking stop it. You can't just keep pushing through, pushing through, pushing through, pushing through, pushing through, pushing through. It doesn't work, trust me. I've tried. So it's like okay, cool, we've got a lot going on. We know what our glass and rubber balls are, so we drop all of our fucking rubber balls. Fuck the rubber balls for right now. We'll deal with them later. We might have to, you know, spend a couple of hours folding, washing, whatever. We'll deal with that later on, once things have settled down a little bit. But you need to let off that steam.
Speaker 2:So this could look like fucking putting your music on in the car instead of whatever crap the kids are listening to at the moment, because God knows my children listen to some crap. Ours is like soda pop, oh yeah, k-pop. But you know, sometimes you just don't have that and that's just going to be one more noise in your brain that's like oh, my God, I just can't fucking do it. So don't have that, and that's just going to be one more noise in your brain that's like, oh my god, I just can't fucking do it, so don't.
Speaker 2:It might be, you know, when you're sitting at a stoplight on the way to get the kids just doing a quick body scan, what am I feeling in my body? Just acknowledging it and going, yeah, okay, cool, I'm feeling really fucking tight in my chest. I don't have time to unpack that right now, that's cool, but I but I'm acknowledging it's there Because then I'm not like completely blind to the fact. And then when I lose my shit because you know somebody's done something pretty inconsequential that's not really that big a deal as a general rule, but you've blown up over it it's like, yeah, I've got that tightness in my chest. I'm stressed, even if I'm not allowing myself to think about it because I just have to push through. It's like my body is not reflecting that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like a lot of this is really around mums, right, like the time piece and all of that. And I think something that I said to a client the other day there's this been piece of avoidance around grief and she's like I just need, you know, space to be able to do that. But, like you know, I've got the kids and stuff and I'm like one which we'll talk in another episode as well of like, well, why does grief have to look that way? Right, we think grief has to look a certain way, or an emotion has to look a certain way. But, two, by you not doing that, what is actually happening here?
Speaker 1:Like you are the main provider, you are the person that co-regulates the household. So what's actually happening here? It's actually like allowing, like the image comes into my head, like there's like smoke in the house and you're refusing to open a window Because you're like I should be able to deal with the smoke, I should be able to deal with this, I should be able to deal with this, I should be able to deal with this, and it's like there's no time, there's no time, there's no time and all we're going is like okay, it doesn't need to be a four-hour process. No, you can just open a window.
Speaker 2:Yeah, take a few deep breaths, yeah.
Speaker 1:The other piece to that, though, is noticing like there's always like a like the other side, noticing how you're taking these micro moments in a way to avoid taking bigger moments. Yeah, yeah, you're like, I got myself five minutes, I got a coffee, I put on my music, I did that, but it's like a constant pattern of doing these micro moments, when all the fuck you need is to take a day off or you need to go. Hey, I need to take care of the kids, hey, I actually need this, you're like, but I'm getting these little things. And this is obviously where a lot of different shadows come in the lazy piece, the productive piece, the selfish piece. So it's kind of like yes, for the people who are not taking even micro moments, take your micro moments.
Speaker 2:For the people who are now using them as a way to avoid those bigger emotions, I'm gonna lovingly call you out yeah, totally, and I think it's that that word should like I should be able to handle this, I should just do this. And this is something I say to my clients. I'm like the words should and should not are banned in my containers alongside sorry, unless you've actually done something to apologize for, which very fucking rare. But when you're saying things like I should just be able to handle this, cool, but you're not, so there's that missing acceptance. You cannot change anything until you accept it and go. Maybe other people could handle this better.
Speaker 2:You know, kylie down the road has got four kids and her house is always spotless and she just seems like she's always put together. She just seems like she's got her shit sorted. Maybe Kylie has more support than you do. Maybe Kylie just has more capacity than you do. That's okay, it doesn't make you a crappy human. But whenever we're doing the I should be doing this or I should just stop doing this, like I need to lose weight, I just need to stop eating as much, okay, cool, but you're not doing that. Yeah, why?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I also feel there's like this fear of like getting consumed. Right, like a lot of my like client patterns as well is like they avoid doing this big space. I have a lot of clients who have a lot of flexibility in their life and so when they actually have space and then they go to a process and emotion, they feel like, oh my God, this is going to consume me and I'm never going to get out of it. So they're looking at the avoidance of like. If I was actually to take an hour with no phone, no children, no responsibilities, what would happen? Two things tend to happen. One, you go into a free state because you don't actually know how to process emotions, because probably it wasn't modeled to you, it wasn't okay in your conditioning and it's probably the first time that you've been out of take space. The other thing that could happen is all of the emotions come up and you go. I don't know how to handle handle this. And if you're new to this work, my top tip is there's actually nothing you need to fix in those emotions. You can actually just sit with them and allow them to move through your body how they want to. If it's through tear, like tears, through anger releases, if it's through just taking a big fucking breath.
Speaker 1:The push through thing is something that sometimes unconsciously becomes a pattern in moms Because, like I did this real the other day around spirals. It's kind of like your life isn't linear but it's like a spiral. So you may be on top of your spiral and everything might be okay with you, like health wise, whatever, job wise. You know that maybe the house looking okay, but maybe your kids is going through something, maybe your partner is also going through something at the same time, because, remember, we're different spirals, we have different things. So then you go okay, well, he's at the bottom, my kid's at the bottom, my kid's kind of gone through something. I'm just going to push through.
Speaker 1:And then that push through also comes from the lens of like I'm now not even going to feel this happiness. I feel Right, I'm not going to feel this happiness, I'm not going to feel a stability because they, like this is where the responsible piece comes in as well, of like I'm responsible for everyone's feelings in the household. If someone's not happy, then why am I happy? If someone's not okay, why am I okay? How can I fix that? How can I make sure they're happy.
Speaker 1:And then what happens? It almost pushes our spiral back to the bottom, because now we're like pushed past any form of happiness and we're now burning ourselves out in order to give to other people, when actually they're very much allowed to go through their own emotions. They're allowed to go through that down because they will come back up eventually. But now you're at the bottom and you're like okay, everyone else is happy. But now you're at the bottom and you're like okay, everyone else is happy. You know, kids are happy, partner's happy, they've got sports. He's got a lot of work on, like you know, I don't want to take him out of his happiness. I don't want to stop my kid's sports so I can take a break. So now you're at the bottom and you're now having to push her again.
Speaker 2:Yeah and yeah. That's like a fucking never ending cycle where it's you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. And then I think that's where the resentment comes in. A lot of the time, for a lot of mums that I speak to, where they go, I have to be everything for everybody else, and nobody is that for me. Nobody notices. I just get told I'm cranky. I just get told like you're not invited to my fucking birthday party. Actually, my four-year-old stopped. She's nearly four, she's four next week. I'm okay, I know.
Speaker 2:I feel like I'm going to fucking bawl my eyes out because it's like all of a sudden I've got no toddlers left in my house. For the first time in like a long long time time I've got no toddlers left in my house. It's just well, that's a big milestone anyway. Um, yeah, it's that piece of. Nobody pays attention to me, nobody like I'm so responsible for everybody else's emotions, for the way that everybody else feels, for their happiness, for making this house run like a well-oiled machine. But when I'm not coping, when I'm not doing well, nobody's holding me, nobody's taking the slack from me Because again, we're all so terrible at asking for help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I also think that I sound really harsh to some people, but like you've created a standard. Ouch, you've created a standard and this is something that came up in my relationship. I am the person that runs this household. I am the person that runs, I know where everybody is, I know the schedules, I know all of that. I'm the one that cooks dinner and gets the groceries. So, yes, sometimes the household will fall a little bit apart. If you need to take a break, right, and it's in those moments and this is like with relationships in the rupture comes the repair, and this also comes with the household. If you've created a standard where you do everything and then expect people to pick up after themselves or to pick up the slack, they can't read your mind. They're not used to this. Our nervous system isn't wired for growth. It's wired for safety and familiarity. You've created the standard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then yeah, sorry.
Speaker 1:It's allowed rupture. Yeah, it is allowed to fall apart, because with a fall apart is a rebuild.
Speaker 2:Correct and I think that change. I hear a lot of people come to me as well because I do. I deal a lot with communication. It's it's one of the topics that I really love to speak about. And people will come to me and they'll say I'm having this issue with my partner and I've tried to speak to him about it and it just always blows up and I'm like cool, that's because you've got 15 years worth of proof that that topic is dangerous. You are not going to fix that in one conversation.
Speaker 2:And the same goes for the household, where it's like oh, you know, I made this cool routine chart. Or I said to my partner I needed help and they said, okay, fine, just tell me what you want me to do. Thanks, babe. But I like made this little fucking thingy and they're not doing it. Or they did it for a few weeks and then they stopped and I'm like, yeah, and again you let that fucking go. And so they go, sweet, I don't have to do it. She was just you know, she was just moody, she was just, you know, in a luteal, she was just having a day and yeah, yeah, okay, she gets cranky and I just do what she wants me to do. Because, again, this is what societal like males in general as a societal whole think of women. Oh, she's just getting emotional. You know, I'll just do the thing and keep her happy, happy wife, happy life, and then I'm just gonna sneak off back into the shadows once she's over. A little fucking hissy fit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I also think something that you just said made me go oh, this is also probably where neurodivergence comes in, right, because you're going to create a routine chart, you're going to try and change things, right. So you've done the same thing for, let's say, 10 years and you're like, okay, but there's also underlying changes throughout those 10 years. You're like cool, I'm going to go to the gym. That lasted six weeks. I'm going to go do this routine thing. That lasted two months. We're going to use a different calendar. We're going to use a different chore chart. We're going to do this. So, like, that's been to a T. So it's like you, throughout these years, you have tried to change things, but you've come back into your own pattern. Yeah, so they're probably just going. Probably another thing she's gonna try and integrate into the household. That's gonna last four fucking weeks and I don't and I hope they don't fucking say that to you, but that's probably the thought, right, just like with my partner, I'm like okay, cool, we've got a car. He's looking at cars. He's probably going to be interested in this one for another two months and he'll look at a different one, unconsciously, because I'm seeing the pattern.
Speaker 1:So your pattern is okay. You're asking people to change. This is the mirror, right. You want your kids to learn to rest and reset. You need to model that. You want your partner to take some weekends off. You need to model that it's okay for rest. You need to model that. It's not like for my kids especially like as having teenagers. They like build things up and build, and build, and build and build, and then, like you look at them or you breathe and it's like a fucking dragon has come out of the fucking woodworks. What have I modeled? Over the years, though? I've modeled to suppress, suppress, suppress, suppress until I'm at my last fucking ditch effort and I blow up. Why would I expect my teenager to do any different?
Speaker 2:yeah, and this is a lot of our work where we're not blaming you, we're not sitting here being like you're the only person that's done this and it's your fault, and if you don't fucking shape up, and but like you can't actually control another person's emotions or feelings or thoughts or behaviors, you can't. And like god knows, I know that with my own children I have to work bloody hard some days to do the things they need to do. But, yeah, if you are modeling, that that's the standard, that that that's okay. They do watch us they really do, and they do take their permission from us, and it's a reason why, a lot of the time, you know, we look at people's lives and we feel deeply uncomfortable by them, because it's like, oh, maybe I should be doing more, maybe I should be doing less, maybe I should this, and also like with the whole rest thing, I've thought a lot about this over the years. Okay, cause, like I've watched a lot of people go from like hustle, burnout culture to the slow life it's not for everybody. I knew it was coming. Oh, it was coming.
Speaker 2:Like, this is the thing for me. Okay, I do have a lot of capacity, I'm very fast, I have a lot of ideas I can execute and I don't burn out. It's not good, by the way, like it's not necessarily a great thing to have. It does have its downfalls. Maybe I burn out and I just don't realize. But I have had to take to. I have to create those micro moments and I have to force myself to take those breaks. Like it doesn't feel good for me to take breaks. It doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1:Let's look at this though right, you're in a season of, like, you've got little kids, right, they're fast moving, they're fast paced, they're like go, go, go. You are in a business that you really love. Like, I think, is it that slow life's not for you, or that your slow looks different to other people's slow?
Speaker 2:Yes, potentially, I think. For me, my issue comes when people try to push their version of what like, of what like they want to do, onto me, where they're like oh, I'll take, for example, I signed my kids up for a bunch of new sports this term. I was doing it and thinking like this feels a little bit like my chaos pattern, but you know, we'll just fuck it, we'll just see it, we'll just do it and see what happens. And I had a lot of people say to me why would you do that? How are you going to do that?
Speaker 2:And for me, I was like well, I actually do have the capacity because my business is built around my children. I finish at 2 pm every day so that I can go and pick them up from school and we would just be coming home anyway. So it's not like I'm having to shift things around with work. Yes, it will require some organization in some areas, but honestly, I think that those systems need to be put in place anyway. So this isn't necessarily a bad thing. But there was a lot of pushback on that and I was like oh my God, like I could never. Okay, cool, I'm not fucking asking you to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, cool, I'm not fucking asking you to. Yeah. I think the thing here, though, is like I don't know know if that's your chaos pattern, though, because it's with your kids, right, and you've built something. Your chaos pattern you can identify pretty quickly in regards to certifications, to doing extra programs and stuff like that. So I think it's kind of like why wouldn't I be in this season of doing a lot of things? Yeah, you're able to do that. Your logical brain is like well, like I finish it too. There's season of doing a lot of things. Yeah, you're able to do that. Your logical brain is like well, I finish at two, there's room for that. A lot of people are like, oh, rest, but you're not going to rest when you get home. Let's be fucking real. You're going to try and fucking do something else with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or like breaking up fights.
Speaker 1:So you're kind of just like, okay, cool, I have capacity to add things in for my children's lives. It's just that when I need to rest, well, you go to Pilates. I see you went for a walk yesterday, I see you do those things. So it's kind of like your rest isn't necessarily being in process for four hours, isn't necessarily having the day off, isn't necessarily sitting in the car all the time trying to figure out things. It's like your rest looks different.
Speaker 1:This is what I guess we can tie it into to finish it up is like what does your slowdown look like? What does the push through look like? Okay, and I had a client actually this morning and we were talking about this. She was in corporate, moved into coaching and was hustle, hustle, hustle. Now to change that, to actually slow down. Her slowdown looks like actually taking time off, like big periods of time off at the moment because she's done all those little things. But that's what it looks like. It looks like her doing her art, looks like her doing this thing.
Speaker 1:My time that I spoke to Steph by this morning is I would like one week where I don't fucking talk to anybody Except me. Yeah, like, as in like I don't want to be posting, like I don't want to be posting, I don't want to be doing those things because I've done those little micro moments. I can have those moments, but it's like, okay, my um stopping to push through looks like actually taking a week off. And to people that's like who do a normal job, you're like I'll take annual leave. We don't get that. I don't remember the last time that I fully like didn't touch my social media, that I didn't touch my clients, like not in a weird way, but like do you know what I mean? So it's kind of just like okay, sometimes you need to do the opposite of what your hustle is. Yeah, you have to interrupt it, you have to change it.
Speaker 1:And that couldn't look like small things, like I've had a day off. Okay, six months ago me taking a day off I would have been like this is fucked Me. I'm like half a day, I'm done for the day. I'm going to go do something else and I'll not sit and become a potato. But my rest looks like decluttering right now, because that feels good. So it's kind of looking like what does your ideal rest look like? What does your ideal rest look like? What does you, processing an emotion, look like? What do you want it to feel like? Because, like Steph said, her biggest ick is people pushing things onto her. Because we're being shown on social media emotional releases, embodiments, rest, slow life. That doesn't actually have to be exactly what it says it is For me.
Speaker 2:I think my slowdown is like not doing things just for the sake of doing them. Yeah, where it's like looking at my business and going, okay, cool, what tasks am I doing each day that I don't actually have to be doing, that I'm doing just for the sake of being busy. And what tasks could I put in that place again, where I've cleaned, I'm cleaning that area up so now I have more space to take my kids to sports, and that is a value of mine. I'm like I would love to be able to do that for them because I have the capability I can do it. Is it always easy? No, but fucking having kids isn't always easy. Like it is what it is. It's like, you know, it's that. Choose your heart right. Either we can come home, and I love that for them. Yeah, like you have to.
Speaker 2:I think you just have to be honest about where you're at what feels good for you, and for some people, the art of actually stopping completely feels so unsafe that you're never going to do it. It's just like oh no, I can't, I can't, there's too much to do. That's okay. Yeah, then go do the thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you hit on the head with that. You have to see where you're at right. You really have to see where you're at, how much you're holding and all of that For my client this morning. I said to her I'm actually not going to task you with anything. I do that sometimes. I'm like I feel like you've got enough For her. I was just like I actually don't want you to do anything. I want you to sit in this because sometimes, like it really depends, like if you're struggling to take micro moments, don't fucking do what I'm suggesting. Or maybe you can.
Speaker 1:If you're a little psycho, I would say full, fucking stop. Watch what comes out. With a full stop, watch what actually comes out. It's actually when you're sitting in that space and that silence, there's so many things that come up the deserving, the privileged, the selfish, the lazy, the unproductive, right. So it's kind of just like well, what do I actually need? Is it that I need a bit of a stop? Do I need to change the way that I stop, or is it that I actually just need to stop fully after years and years and years of pushing?
Speaker 2:But also, you know, stopping in that space where you, she has you. So what does come up? You can work through Like it's not. I feel like it's doing that on your own. Maybe. Don't do that. You don't do that because who knows what will come out of it. But yeah, I think what we're trying to say is like if you are in that cycle where you're pushing through, where you're doing things because you should be doing them, because it makes you a good human being, it makes you a good mom, it makes you a good wife, whatever, Just really paying attention to how that's actually affecting you, and if pushing through is actually the right thing to do for you, not for everybody else. But on that note, nice, short, sweet episode, we will wrap this one up and we will see you next time. Thank you so much for joining us. We've absolutely loved being here with you today.
Speaker 1:And if you have enjoyed today's episode as much as we have enjoyed recording it, please leave a review or drop into our DMs. We would love to hear from you.