Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Each episode will feature a conversation between host Rebecca Harvin and foster/adoptive caregivers or members of the community who support foster care and adoption.
Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Try Softer
Rebecca and Olivia explore the concept of "trying softer" and how loosening our grip on control can transform our lives, especially in the demanding world of foster care and adoption.
• Recognizing when we're trying too hard from a place of insecurity or fear of being "found out" as not good enough
• Understanding how our tendency to meet everyone else's needs often comes at the cost of our own wellbeing
• Examining the difference between authentic presence versus performing or dissociating
• Learning that sustainable care means acknowledging our limits and practicing self-care
• Discovering what it means to "unclench our fist" from trying to control outcomes
• Finding joy in activities without productivity goals attached
• Practicing radical acceptance of circumstances we cannot change
• Recognizing that showing up authentically has more value than perfect performance
I hope that you enjoy this conversation, and that it helps you work through how we can loosen our grip on control and try a little bit softer in our worlds.
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Hey guys, thanks so much for tuning in to Behind the Curtain. I'm your host, rebecca Harvin, and this is where we have honest conversations about foster care and adoption. Today on the podcast, my guest is Olivia Smith, a friend of mine who's been on here before, and our conversation takes a little bit of a turn where every so often, I come behind the microphone and I have a topic that I need to process, and so what you will hear is me trying to work through this idea of trying softer. Olivia is a great sounding board and helps me work through my current life situations and how we can loosen our grip on control and try a little bit softer in our worlds. I hope that you enjoy this conversation, olivia. Thank you so much for being here and being a sounding board for me.
Speaker 1:Today I went to process something. I was thinking about this driving in my car and this idea. I can't get it out of my brain. As I was driving, I thought different areas. I'm just trying too hard, I wonder, in the field of foster care and adoption and working with our kids and doing all of the things. I'm just wondering how much of it comes from a place of insecurity, like if I don't try. If I don't give it every single piece of energy that I have, if I don't give parenting these kids every ounce of myself, then maybe the world will know that I'm not good enough. Maybe, maybe I won't be perfect, maybe I won't be all of these unrealistic expectations right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, that come from a wide variety of places. I think everybody who has this inside of them. It comes from this conglomeration of um, name it. But I'm going to go ahead and say probably, like name it, but I'm going to go ahead and say probably, like probably. Uh, theology there's probably some theological aspects to this in your childhood, of perfection and becoming like Christ and um unattainable perfection where grace is not enough.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that probably people have this, maybe have some parentification or they had to perform in childhood in order to be loved, maybe, or approved of. That's not necessarily where mine, I think, comes from. I think mine comes from more that theological aspect of being like Christ. It comes from this place of will. They know how much of a fraud I feel like I am. I don't know who all thinks like that. I think that probably more than just me.
Speaker 3:I think it's far more common than is um, uh, that is known, yeah, yeah, especially for women.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And I think in this, in this world of foster care and adoption, right, most of us get into this either, because some, every path is different, but for me it was. I could parent my, I could parent Zoe and Slade. I still, to this day, I'm like I could write a book on parenting kids like Zoe and Slade. I'm really damn good at it and I am so not good Most of the time. Some, some of the time, my therapist would say that I'm harder on myself than I need to be, which is probably accurate. But that's the point. That's the point.
Speaker 1:That is the point Compared to the thing that I'm weighing myself against the trying hard, the perfection, the being like Christ. I see all of the ways that I fall short.
Speaker 1:And then I cover. I'm covering that with if I wear the right outfit, if I have like. Do I need to wake up tomorrow before my Zoom appointment and my hair is perfectly done? And my hair so that they know? So that they know that I'm like, that I'm whatever right. This person showed up ready to go to CrossFit with so much freedom to show up like that, what is that even like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that comes naturally to some people. I think it.
Speaker 1:It comes naturally to you to a degree.
Speaker 3:I think, not as natural as it seems. I have a lot of anxiety and a lot of I overthink everything, like on most of my like anything I've done since high school, like it, like skills assessments, career assessments. I am very analytical, I'm a hyper aware of myself all the time, but I'm also, as like, a heavy empath, hyper aware of everyone else and therefore I am hyper aware of how my interactions with people are impacting their day and their soul and their wellbeing Well-being and I think I put so much pressure on myself. Maybe it's less apparent because my pressure is more internal. It's less about how I appear externally.
Speaker 1:I think in more about how.
Speaker 3:I show up for people, it's my presence that I put pressure on myself to Expend at my own expense. My presence, my service, that's where my pressure for myself comes. And I think maybe in doing that, like, I have had to let go of like the fear or the thoughts of like what I look like when I show up in certain places. I mean, I've just started giving people a heads up, like I will literally text people and be like hey, heads up, I'll be like, hey, you want to grab a drink? Or hey, can we have a meeting? And if I'm not planning on doing anything that day, hey, yeah, that's fine, I would love to. I'm coming in yoga pants.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I haven't done my hair. Yeah, my hair's up. It was a shower, it was the outfit that triggered it. Yeah, right for me where it was, where I realized that I do this often, but then it was this oh, I wonder in how many places. You and I both know that my life is really hard right now it's in a season, season of absolute intensity in every category, and that's hard for me to have no area that feels really truly safe Safe to a degree.
Speaker 1:There's safety in every area that I look at. To a degree, right, I can find there's safety in every area that I look at to a degree right I can find pockets of safety in every area of my life, but the whole category itself is not, does not feel safe um and so one of the side effects of this is exhaustion oh yeah, mental, physical, everything I've brad has asked me the past couple nights.
Speaker 1:by the time that it's evening, he will look at me and he'll just be like what is going on, are you okay? And I will just look at him and go. My battery, physically and emotionally, is empty. It's just completely empty.
Speaker 1:And so, as I was kind of holding this, when I hold a thought like this, I get this picture that I'm holding it in my hand and this is how my brain makes sense of it, and I just kind of walk around it. Does that make sense? And I start looking at it from. I'm just I'm trying to picture, I'm trying to understand what is happening in my brain, and so I'm looking around and around and around. And so this question of I think I'm trying too hard. And then I put that thought into my hand and I've been walking around it, going oh, maybe I'm trying too hard in my marriage. Walking around it, going, oh, I, maybe I'm trying too hard in my marriage. I may be trying too hard with my kids. I may be trying too hard at work. I may be trying too hard in in perfection, I may be trying to.
Speaker 1:What is it? What would that look like? What would that look like if I peeled back, if I just showed up authentically and I'm far better at showing up authentically now than I was three or four years ago Right and um, which would be a surprise to people who have thought I was authentic all of the time. Surprise jokes on us. Um, I'm not. I even in saying more things than the average person would, or being able, being willing to go first and doing all of that stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, not too often Am I fully present in my body when I'm doing those things Does that make sense.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:Nor am I maybe paying attention to what my body is asking for or what it needs, and I'm, I will sacrifice that for the sake of the other person in front of me, always at a cost.
Speaker 3:Yep, I feel that.
Speaker 1:The cost is becoming too high.
Speaker 3:It's, it's economics right Like, like. Supply and demand, right Like. And the cost everything has a right. And the cost Everything has a price, everything has a cost. So what are you? When you say yes to one thing, you're saying no to one, to multiple other things. So what are you saying no to? You're saying no to yourself and your well-being. Yeah, you have to decide right Like, is that acceptable?
Speaker 3:Well, for so many years that that answer has been yes but it's getting me to a place where it's not yes anymore, but was that your answer, or was that the answer you were taught from girl Like you know what I mean. Like that's that's where you start peeling it back. Is that Rebecca's answer, or is that the people around you's answer that was given to you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember this session that Brad and I were in in therapy when I was talking about um there. I remember this session that Brad and I were in in therapy when I was talking about there was this period of time earlier this year where my nervous system the way that I described it in therapy was that it chose me for the first time in my life. Yeah.
Speaker 1:For several weeks on end. I'd never experienced that before and Brad, led by our therapist, asked me what does it normally feel like? And I said well, it normally feels like these frayed ends that are out surveying the room where you were talking about.
Speaker 1:I'm hyper aware of people around me, right, and I was like it's constantly surveying, it's constantly going what is the need, what is the need, what is the need, what is the need, what is the need, what is the need, what is the need, what is the need, what is the need, what is the need? And once it identifies the need, then meet the need Right. And he said, well, at at the sacrifice of yourself. And I looked at him. I said, well, it's not always a sacrifice. Sometimes, me, meeting the need is the thing that I want to do. Like it's not hard to, it's not hard to love my kids.
Speaker 1:It's not hard to be present with some of my kids. It's very hard to be present sometimes, but it's not. It's not hard. There are things that are meeting needs around me that are not in any way, shape or form, actually sacrificial to to me, but I will sacrifice myself if needed. But I will sacrifice myself if needed, right, right, and that's the difference. If that's what I judge here, I will choose you over me every time, until I crash.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, right, and so I think the thing that I think about right is sustainability. It's not sustainable to sacrifice yourself forever, like because if you're, if the goal, or I wouldn't even say goal if by meeting everyone else's needs, by putting their needs first, you think you are giving them everything they need, that's a very short-term thing. You're giving them everything they need in that moment, but what they need is you long-term, and by denying yourself of yourself, you crash and you have no capacity to give them anything.
Speaker 3:So you deny them of what they really need, and that's you. But you're denying you and them in that moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's very instant gratification when it comes to for me as an Enneagram too, because I love the Enneagram which I have. Like I have theories on why I think taking the Enneagram as an adultneagram 2, because I love the Enneagram which I have theories on why I think taking the Enneagram as an adult who had gone through therapy. I took it for the first time as an adult who had gone through therapy. I think there's a reason why a lot of women are Enneagram 2s. You know what I mean. If we lived in a matriarchal society, a lot of us would be 8s and nines, instead of a sub wing of an eight or a nine. As someone who falls into a caregiving role very easily and naturally because I do care very deeply about others and also I have, like a deep, deep-seated need to belong, and I think we often as a society, as Christians, as women I mean men too I think we confuse purpose and passion purpose and passion.
Speaker 3:We don't have to always be in service to others in order to live in our purpose. You, you can't constantly put everyone else ahead of yourself. It's it sustainable. Yeah. It can be your general operating right, like you can. You can operate there, sure, with boundaries. You can stay there with boundaries that you stick to and you make other people stick to, and if they don't, they lose access to you. And I've gotten really good at that.
Speaker 1:I mean you, and I love to talk about boundaries.
Speaker 3:I'm good at it.
Speaker 1:In most you are You're phenomenal at it in most areas and I'm good at it in the areas that you're not good at. Yes, I love our flip-flop strings. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1:I'm sitting here and I'm thinking. One time I remember standing in this parking lot talking to my friend who is a therapist and we were talking kind of off the cuff about this healing journey that I've been on for years now. Underestimate what a true healing journey actually is, Solidly underestimate what it means when your life kind of flips upside down and it becomes this catalyst to true, actual healing Right. And I was standing in the parking lot and I was like what does it even feel like? Like I just remember feeling so frustrated and so like I'm in the middle of this. I've been doing this for years. What is it? What is it going to look like? And I was talking with that kind of emphasis.
Speaker 1:I can get very impassioned sometimes my voice, especially in these moments of just deep yearning, Like I'm doing all this work, Like what is the payoff going to be? Because I don't feel it yet. Um, and that was probably a year or so ago, Um, and in the meantime I started doing between that conversation and now I've started doing EMDR and it has revolutionized.
Speaker 1:It is the gas pedal for my healing journey. Right, and so now I can stand here and I can go. Oh, I know what healing looks like now. I know what it feels like. I know what it feels like to come across a situation and operate totally different. Now I know what, what. I know what my brain feels like when it's healthy in certain areas, and I know what it feels like when it's still kind of tangled in belief systems that don't work, trying harder, right.
Speaker 1:Like what we're talking about right now, yeah, and so I feel the same thing inside of me right now of going, and so I feel the same thing inside of me right now of going. What does it even look like? What does it look like to try softer? There's a book Her name is I want to say it's Andre, something. I will find it, we will link it in the show notes and I think it's called Try Softer. I just read one of her books. I want to say her name is Andre Peterson. I could be totally wrong and we jumped into this podcast, into the deep end right, neither one of us really knew.
Speaker 1:This is the second time that I have kind of pressed record and gone. There's a podcast inside of me. I don't know where this is going to go, but I know that I want to be behind a mic when I figure this out, because I genuinely believe one of my guiding principles is that if I am struggling with it, somebody else is too. Yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I think that there are people listening who have the same question what would it even look like if I tried softer? I have a coach in my life that I have referenced a couple of times on here who is constantly encouraging me in this direction, constantly going what would it look like? What would it look like if you unclenched your fist a little bit from this? You unclenched your fist a little bit from this, from trying so hard, is what he kind of gets to every time. So it's not the first time that this question has been posed, but I think it's the first time that my soul has gone. I think I'm. I think I'm tired enough. I think my life is intense enough right now that I am looking at it going. I don't.
Speaker 3:What I've been doing isn't working, which is a little bit humbling to say, when you've been trying so hard, right, right, that's the irony of trying so hard is well, and here's where it gets complicated, too right, like I've tried, and I've tried, and I've tried and it's not working. Yeah, why isn't what I'm doing enough? Is what that's where your brain goes for most of us oh, I'm just, I can't do it, I'm not, I'm not. I see other people doing it, but we think they're doing it. We don't know what they're feeling internally.
Speaker 1:Well, also, I'm not used to not solving a problem.
Speaker 3:Right, well, and that's so. There's a control thing too. It's when you let go of part of trying softer and I have not read that book, but, and so I I don't want to say this from her perspective, the author's perspective but, um, part of trying softer is letting go of control. You can't try soft and not try to and try to control it. You have to be willing to be like what is is Like I have to try. Trying less means I control less, and that's really hard for me who, like? In my first therapy session, my therapist said we need to talk a little bit more about control next week and I was like, probably not.
Speaker 1:Maybe I won't come back. It's a no for me, dog, in the same way that this can be rooted in insecurity, like imposter syndrome, and they'll know that I'm not good enough because I feel like a failure. Conversely, if I choose to take on a challenge, I generally succeed.
Speaker 3:Right, right. So there's this. There's a self-esteem aspect of it where I I can have a high self, I can have high self-regard of. If I take this on, I can do it, and my life has taught me that. My life has taught in that I ask myself, and I would ask you too, like, how much of that is a self-esteem, self-regard, and how much of that is life has taught me that I can't trust others Because I think in the I can't, I think I can do it better. For me, that 100% stems from I've had to do it better. I've had to do the things because people who were supposed to do them did not do them, so I've had to step in. That's where you were talking about parentification, right, like you have to step in when you're the kind of person who's engaged and who cares. When someone doesn't show up, there's a gap. And when you are constantly stepping into a gap for yourself, for other people, for whoever you're going to be more capable of doing things because you've stepped into things with no training.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to our kids, right, right, when we look at that gap of ability versus expectation, versus internal expectation or societal expectation, and we're looking at this gap.
Speaker 3:it can be all-consuming, it can yeah, it can be really consuming it can yeah, it can be really all consuming, and it can be really.
Speaker 1:I'm not trying to beat myself up here, right? I'm trying to make sense of this in my head of one of the teachers at school the other day said something to me and I immediately said something negative because I'm so aware of the gap. Right, does that make sense? Yeah, because I live with this gap in front of me and I'm constantly trying to bridge that gap for society.
Speaker 1:So I do it in a lot of different ways. Yep, right One is just acknowledge the gap. But I wonder if it is, if we just let go. And this is where life is pushing me right now is to say I know my kids need all of the therapy. They need so much therapy different kinds speech, occupational behavior, attachment, you name it. We're in it. It's not working for my family. And so having the freedom to look at somebody outside of my family unit and feel like I'm disappointing them and not doing everything humanly possible to bridge this gap between my kids and their abilities and society's expectations, or their internal expectations, or my expectations, or you know what I mean To not be putting every ounce of effort that I can into it and to unclench my fist a little bit and go. It's killing our family.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I want to pause you because I want to say you said like everything humanly possible. I think I would push and say is it actually humanly possible to expect someone to do all those things, for all those, for every kid?
Speaker 1:Right, Right, If I hit a bell, I would just hit. I would like ding, ding ding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like, is it actually humanly possible?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Same therapist in the conversation that I was talking about earlier in a different conversation, looked at me and said do you realize that you have superhuman expectations? And I said no, I just I don't realize that. I just only have expectations. They're just, they just feel like expectations to me. And she was. We were talking about attachment. And she was said Rebecca, nobody could do what you're expecting of yourself to do. And I, I sat, I looked at her and I do. You know what I thought?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can do. It Does that way.
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought, if she's right, then other people don't know this and I need to make a map, a roadmap of attachment. It's literally what I thought and I'm going to do it.
Speaker 3:I'm going to actually do it, but that is what you guys can't see me. But I, but that is what you guys can't see me, but I'm literally my eyes immediately closed, shaking my head. We went from I am in peril to I have a task so fast, so fast because I can do this.
Speaker 1:I can do that, I might. I might not be able to attach to some of my kids I might still be struggling with that, but if I'm struggling, other people like. That is how my brain works right. Oh, I can make, we can do this. This would help people. I can get this out into the world and I could make sense of my own situation while I'm doing it.
Speaker 3:Right, and so this is where purpose, I think, comes into. Like you talking about like oh, this is like, I can do this thing, you light up when you like. Oh, I can make sense of this in this way, I can help people. When I make sense of it for myself, I can then help other people make sense of themselves. That is passion and like, like showing up in the chaos of your life, right yes, yes, I light up every single time when yes and it's brilliant and it's beautiful and it's like what makes you you and that's why haven exists right.
Speaker 3:It's literally why haven it's beautiful and it's like what makes you you and that's why haven exists, right, it's literally why haven it's literally. Why haven?
Speaker 3:exists when you talk about purpose, I think like we can get entangled again into this like and it misbelief, I don't know, like misunderstanding, misunderstanding, misteaching, maybe idea that we have to use everything that happens in our life has to have something that comes out of it that's similar to this it puts pressure on how we experience our lives, like we can't experience everything as a service to other people. That's not how we, as humans, are intended to experience life. There's a, there's a, there's a space where that is critical and it's going to happen, sometimes naturally, sometimes later, sometimes instantly, like it did for you in that moment. Sometimes it doesn't need to happen at all. Sometimes a moment is a moment, sometimes a moment is a moment, sometimes a season is a season, and what comes out of that is I didn't abandon myself, like for me, here's how I.
Speaker 3:I once, like I took a training one time and I was seven habits of highly effective people, I think and one of the questions was like, what are your red flags? What should your team know about you? Like, if this happens or this is going on, I'm presenting in this way, whatever, you know, I'm overwhelmed, I'm underwater, I need help. I know I am unwell when I can't hear myself think when I'm doing things and I can't figure out why I'm actually doing them when I'm doing things and I can't figure out why I'm actually doing them.
Speaker 3:I'm I'm abandoning myself, I'm leaving my and, like you said earlier, like you're not present in your body in that moment, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't mean to brag, but I have been told I have a highly sophisticated ability to disassociate.
Speaker 3:Right? Well, for me, disassociation looks like scrolling and playing games and because I still have a I'm a high feeling person, I need to feel. So being numb is very hard for me. I feel everything. I can't not feel because I literally I absorb other people's feelings in a room. So I can't not feel unless I am totally by myself, and if I'm by myself, my brain is going crazy usually. So then I'm feeling because I'm I'm anxious and my thoughts are racing. So for me, disassociation has to look like something productive. I'm doing something. For me, disassociation has to look like something productive. I'm doing something I'm I'm reading.
Speaker 3:I'm like a therapist. My therapist once asked me what do you do for fun, like, or what do you do to relax? And I was like, oh, I read, I find shark's teeth and I do puzzles, and she's like right, but like, when do you like relax?
Speaker 1:and I was like isn't that what I just said?
Speaker 3:I just told you, that's what I do to relax. She's like but everything you're doing, you have a goal. You always have a goal. And I was like, right, and she's like you don't, you don't just do something to do it, like you're not doing it, just to do it. And I was like right, I literally can't comprehend what that means. First of all, I I don't, I am.
Speaker 1:I mean, even if I tell you that I'm gardening. I'm gardening for my yard to look pretty, but I'm not just outside playing in the dirt, but that's like.
Speaker 3:that's the argument, is like if you only do things because you want something externally or you want to feel productive, then are you really relaxing? Are you giving yourself what you need? Because what you might need is just literally rest. What you might need is just putting your feet in the water at the beach. What you might need is playing in the dirt, sitting in the dirt. What you might need is To go for a walk.
Speaker 3:To throw yeah, go for a walk, not for the sake of exercise or getting your steps in. Go for a walk, not for the sake of exercise or getting your steps in. Go for a walk, put on music, not because you're trying to infuse a feeling in yourself. Put on music just because Go for a drive and don't know where you're going. Try to make yourself, do something that isn't goal-oriented, because that's when you're going to really find yourself Like our kids do crap all the time and they literally there's no reason, but it's because they haven't gotten to the point where society and us, as their parents and the world has told them what you do determines who you are and how successful you can be and how you're perceived. They haven't internalized all of that to the point of developing routines around it.
Speaker 1:I was on a trip to Southeast Asia recently, southeast Asia recently and when I came home, people asked me about the trip. Obviously because it's not a small thing for a mom of six to travel around the world in a week, right In nine days. And the only thing that I could tell people when I came home was I got to be the best version of myself for nine days straight. And, as you're talking about goal oriented things and doing something just to do it, and this was not a trip where you would expect me to come home and say I was so rested I felt by the by day nine I was so rested I couldn't even comprehend that that amount of rest was possible. But I'm thinking about the trip in this aspect now and I didn't try. Yeah.
Speaker 1:At any point on the entire trip. I wasn't striving for anything Kind of and this is going to sound crazy, I'm going to say it because I just didn't give a shit. I was on the trip because I felt the Lord asked me to go on the trip. I couldn't make sense of it at all and I the whole time was like God. I think that this is crazy. I think that this is absolutely crazy. You know, you heard me say this before the trip. I processed it in my head. The kind of work that we were doing is the same kind of work that we were doing at home, so it didn't feel out of my league or out of my comfort zone at all. Every single thing about this trip called out my strengths, every single thing, and I got to experience life for nine days as the best version of myself. But I'm thinking about it now and I'm like I experienced so much joy.
Speaker 1:We came home and my coach was asking, asking me in this season right, there's this, there's this reality that I'm coming to terms with, that things in my life might not actually change, but I have to live here. And so how do I live here and not just survive, survive, not just barely keep my head out of the water. How do I thrive here, regardless of what anybody else around me might do or not do? How do I show up as myself? How do I show up as the best versions of myself, but without striving to be the best versions of myself, without all of those things? And he was talking to me about that and he was like what are you, what is your soul need, Rebecca? And I looked at him. I was like I need to go kayaking. It was so instant, it was so, um, exactly what I needed to do.
Speaker 3:And did you do it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did it and it went a little bit sideways, but I didn't protect it the way that I should have protected it. Yeah, shocking.
Speaker 3:Boundaries are hard. Boundaries with my family are hurt, yeah, yeah, boundaries with my, yeah yeah, do you as like as another, like as a woman who does a lot of things and who's like highly functional, right, like high capacity, high capacity. It's like, yes, that's the way to say it. I frequently am asked how do you do?
Speaker 1:all the things that you do, god?
Speaker 3:that question makes me feel crazy for the most part, I don't say yes to things that I don't want to do. I used to, yeah, but the things I'm doing now are things that I'm passionate about and that bring me joy. At first, when I started saying yes to things outside of my job and my family felt so much guilt because I was like I'm taking time away from being with my kids, from growing up.
Speaker 3:being a mom is the only thing that stayed consistently true as like what do I want to be when I grow up?
Speaker 3:I want to be a mom. I've always wanted to be a mom. I had a very specific vision of what being a mom looked like. Um, I wanted so many kids. I want so many kids. It was insane for me to think this um knowing myself now. It's not insane for everybody. It's insane for me to think this um knowing myself now. It's not insane for everybody. It's insane for me to be clear Um, I wanted to probably stay at home. I wanted to like be this like I don't know, like more traditional sense of motherhood was like what I had pictured for myself, because I babysat, I nannied, I coached.
Speaker 3:I literally worked with kids my entire life and I was so good at it Like so good at it and I loved playing with the kids when I worked with them as my favorite part of it. I brought games to people's houses. When I babysat, I brought stuff to build forts. I brought stuff to make cookies. I did all this fun stuff. I brought stuff to make cookies. I did all this fun stuff. And then when I had my own kids, I was like I hate doing, I hate playing with my kids. Why do I hate playing with my kids? I was like, oh, it's because when I was babysitting and nannying and doing all these things that was my job. I could enjoy it because I didn't feel like I was also supposed to be doing 10 other things within my immediate vicinity and around myself.
Speaker 3:So motherhood looks so different than what I thought it would, and I love working way more than I thought I would. I love what I do. Like I don't see my sole purpose as being a mother. I think the way I show up for my kids is the same way I show up for other people in my life, just on a vast, more vast scale, more constant scale.
Speaker 1:I had a friend talk about this very early in my motherhood where she said being a mother is one of the most important, if not the most important role that I have. But it is not my only role and I didn't. I don't lose my identity as a person because I am a mom, and I have wrestled with that. I've gone back and forth over that. I've never wrestled with it in a sense of feeling like she was wrong in saying it. I've always looked at that sentence with a ton of admiration. Um, she's a working mom. She does all kinds of things, she goes on adventures with and without her kid I mean just she's. She is living a full, beautiful life that I um honestly aspire to a lot. Not to live her life, but to live a full, beautiful life, right? Right.
Speaker 1:And I think that that's actually another aspect of if I'm peeling this onion back. That's, one of my goals is to live a full and beautiful life right, I have abundant life tattooed on my wrists.
Speaker 1:Life in all capital letters. It's the name of my first child. It comes from a place of deep yearning for the kingdom of heaven to invade earth the way that it's talked about in its purest form, right, and to go gosh if Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy. And Jesus came so that we could have life, and life more abundantly. What does it look like to partner with that? And I think I've had the wrong thing in my head of what it looks like to partner with that, because it has looked like try harder instead of be. Does that make sense? Be there's a book. Does that make sense? B there's a book.
Speaker 1:There's lots of varying opinions about Piper these days, but Piper wrote this book called Desiring God and it was about how we honor the Lord by delighting. That delight in and of itself right, is this where you're talking about? Relaxing is not goal-oriented, but it's just delight. You garden because it's delightful. You play in the pool because it's delightful. You go sit in the beach with your feet in the sand and in the water because it's delightful and that in doing those things you are delighting also God. Yeah, right, and it's this very be mentality but do is also important, and what I'm learning and I think I'm taking this next step into this learning is my job is to show up and be faithful and that's it, and every day it's just show up and to be faithful to whatever that day has. I just am wondering how many of us struggle with that, with this idea of showing up and just being faithful to the day and letting it be.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It is what it is.
Speaker 3:In therapy. There's a word, word for that, a term radical acceptance radical acceptance my therapist said I need to work on it and I said okay I have been working on radical acceptance for a couple years I really struggle with it because I always feel like I can make something better. I don't have to accept it as it is, I can make it better the story I'm telling myself about trying harder.
Speaker 1:This is how my brain works, right? This is why we had to get to this spot in the conversation.
Speaker 3:That's why we've done all this work. We've done all of this work.
Speaker 1:The story I'm telling myself about trying harder is that it will change my reality or it will fix problems that I want it to fix. Or people will like me, or people will approve of me as whatever kind, whatever version of professional. I'm showing up as that day or it will, or it will or it will Right the story I'm telling myself around, trying harder instead of showing up as Rebecca and being vulnerable and authentic and present as Rebecca in whatever capacity I have. That day I think it's that I'll be loved.