Let It Be Theirs: Sometimes It's Just B.S. — and the 5 Things You Actually Control

Sometimes life hands you something unfair, there's no lesson in it, and no amount of positive thinking makes it make sense. In this solo episode of Girl, Why Not You?, Jennie Blackwood talks about how to stop overthinking something you can't control — and the 5 things that are actually yours.

If you're a woman in the middle of something hard — lying awake at 2am replaying it, having full conversations in the shower with someone who isn't there — this one is for you. Jennie shares the mindset shift that let her stop arm wrestling the weather, plus the one sentence that changed her life: let it be theirs, and let it be mine.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
- Why being a fixer turns on you the moment you hit something you can't fix
- The hard truth nobody puts on a graphic: trying hard does not entitle you to an outcome
- How to stop caring what people think about you (and why you get input, not a vote)
- The 24-hour rule for never sending an angry text, email, or DM again
- The 5 things you actually control: your response, your hands, your circle, your presence, your character
- How to stay present with your family while you're going through something hard
- The one sentence to say out loud when something isn't yours to carry

CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:30 Why I sat on this episode for weeks
00:59 Sometimes it's just bullshit — and there's no lesson in it
01:38 It's what you do in the days after
02:33 The fixer problem: when you hit something you can't fix
03:16 2am replays and shower arguments
03:50 Trying hard does not entitle you to an outcome
04:38 The fast list of what you don't control
05:54 The sentence that changed my life: let it be theirs
07:28 #1 Your response - nothing goes out warm (the 24-hour rule)
08:45 #2 Your hands - why making something breaks the loop
09:50 #3 Your circle - tell two people, not fourteen
10:30 #4 Your presence - those dinners don't come back
11:36 #5 Your character - "I stayed me"
13:16 It's a practice, not a one-time decision
13:34 Say it out loud: "That is not mine to carry"
14:28 You can be in the middle of something hard and still be building
15:20 Most things don't resolve - they get smaller as your life gets bigger
16:24 You've got this, girl

Send this to the woman in your life who's white-knuckling something right now. She won't tell you she needs it. Send it anyway.

Girl, why not you?

Hosted by Jennie Blackwood - mom of four, founder of Social Graze, and creator of Cart to Cashflow.
Instagram: @socialgraze.charcuterie
Website: jennieblackwood.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Jenny Blackwood, a small town mom of four who refused to settle for a life that didn't light me up. When everything felt uncertain, I didn't run back to a nine-to-five, I'd bet on myself. I took a simple idea and turned it into an almost seven-figure business my first year, all while being a mom first. Now I'm here to help you trust your own power, chase the dream that keeps tapping your shoulder, and build a life that feels like you. This is Girl, Why Not You. Okay. So I've been sitting on this episode for a while and I kept not recording it because I kept thinking I should wait until I had it all figured out. Until I could come on here and be like, here's the lesson. I'm through it. I'm great. And then I thought, no, no, no. That's the fake freaking version. That's the version that doesn't help anybody. And to be honest, I'd rather be useful to you than impressive. So let me just say the true thing first, all right? Sometimes stuff is just bullshit. That's it. That's my entire opener. Sometimes life hands you something that is unfair, stupid, and you did not earn it, and there's no lesson in it, and no amount of positive thinking is going to make it make sense, right? And I think we do each other a disservice pretending otherwise. All that everything happens for a reason. Listen, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's just garbage and it's your turn, which is not fun. But here's the thing that I actually do believe, and this is the part I want to give you today. It was never about whether it happens. It happens to literally everybody. It's about what you do in the days after that matter. That part is yours. That part has always been yours. And I'm telling you right now, before we even really get started, you've got this, sister. Not in a cute way either. And a look at what you've already survived that you were sure would end you kind of way. We've all been there. So stay with me because I want to give you five things to hold on to and one sentence that changed my whole life. I'm Jenny Blackwood, and this is Girl, Why Not You. So let me be real with you for a minute, everybody, because I don't want to do the podcast voice today, if I'm being honest. I'm a fixer. You guys know this about me. Somebody hands me a problem and something in my chest goes, I got this. That's my entire personality. It's why I have the business I have. It's probably why my kids are alive today. And that works. It works great. Right up until the day you run into something that you can no longer fix. And then it turns on you because you don't have a setting for this one, it isn't mine. You just have to push harder and harder. And when it doesn't move, you don't go, huh, that's immovable. Nope. You just go, huh, I must not be doing it right. And sis, that's not a flaw. That's a good heart pointed at the wrong wall. So then you're up at two in the morning, running it back, looking for the angle you missed, the sentence that finally lands, the thing that you should have said. You're in the shower having a whole ass conversation with somebody who is not even in the shower with you. And can I get a thank God to that? And you are burning your absolute best fuel, your best thinking, your best hours, the energy your life actually needs on a machine that isn't even plugged in. I'm going to say the hard sentence. Are y'all ready for this? Everybody, sit down. Trying hard does not entitle you to an outcome. It just doesn't. You can do everything right, literally everything, and it can still go the way it goes. And that's not a character flaw. That's not you failing. Please know that. That's just how it is sometimes. And nobody tells you that because it's not a cute thing to put on a graphic. But here's why I'm telling you when I actually accepted that, not nodded at it, okay, but accepted it. Something in my shoulders came down for the first time in a long time. Because if the outcome was never mine, then I didn't actually fail at it, did I? There was nothing there to win. I was arm wrestling the weather, and you can put that down. You're allowed to put that down. Fast list. Notice how much of your week is on it. You don't control what people think about you. And I know that that is so hard for so many of us. Not clients, not strangers, not people who used to know you and decided who you were years ago, right? You get input. You don't get a vote, unfortunately. That's it. That's all you get. You don't control what someone decides to say. Not even a single word of it. You don't control other people's timing, whether they ever freaking get it, whether they've ever come around and listen, guys, some of them won't. Some people are gonna hold on to their wrong idea about you for a long time. And you're going to have to go live a beautiful life, anyways. Which honestly is the best possible outcome for you and the worst possible outcome for them. So let's get after that. You don't control things that get decided by other people in rooms that you are not in. And you don't control the past. Not even one millisecond of it. That is the list. And I bet you money, that's where most of your energy went this week. Because guess what? Mine too. I'm not up here like I've got it handled. Please hear me when I say that. So here's the sentence. Okay? This is the one I want you to take with you, even if you forget everything else I say today. Let it be theirs. Their opinion? Let it be theirs. Their version of the story, let it be theirs. Their bad mood, their assumptions, their whole entire attitude about you, let it be theirs. Because it's not yours. You don't have to go pick it up. You don't have to carry it home. You don't have to answer it. And here's the other half, because that first half alone is just detachment. And I want more for you than that, if I'm being honest. Let it be theirs and let it be mine, okay? They get their version. I get my life. I get my kids, my work, my mornings, my sparkle, and my frickin' peace. That's the trade, and it is such a good trade, wouldn't you say? Because the truth has a way of standing up on its own eventually. All right? It really does. It doesn't need you to defend it at 2 a.m. It doesn't need you to convince anybody. Truth is patient like that. Your job is not to prove it. Hear that again. Your job is to live it out loud, in color, until it's the only thing anybody can see. Okay, so what's left then? Five things. That's it. Let's make this quick. It's a short list and it looks too small to matter, and I'm telling you, though, it's the whole friggin' game. One, your response and how fast you give it. My rule is nothing goes out warm, okay? If I can feel it burning in my throat, it doesn't get sent. Doesn't get texted, doesn't get posted, just doesn't get said. Now, here's the thing. I still write it the whole damn thing exactly as I feel it, because I have to get it out of my body or I'm up all night. And then it goes in the drafts and I go to bed. And in the morning, 90% of the time, I can delete that. Not because I got noble overnight, nothing happened in my dreams, nothing changed that, but because I just don't need it anymore. I just needed to say it. And that 10% that survives, that one's always shorter, you guys. Always calmer. Always the one I'd be okay with somebody reading out loud in a room full of people that I respect. That's my test. Not, is this true or not? Do they deserve it? They might. They probably do. The test is just would I be proud of this in a room full of people that I respect? 24 hours will tell you. 20 minutes is gonna lie to you every single time. Two, what you do with your hands. Now many of you are probably saying, What are you talking about, Jenny? Is this some crazy Ricky Bobby moment? No. When my head won't quit, I go make something. We all know I love charcuterie, so I'll go build a board. Then I get to eat it too. Even better. I know that it sounds too simple to count, right? Like, okay, how's that gonna make things better? But it isn't. Something about your hands, though, and doing a real thing. Your brain has to come along for that ride. And it can't run the loop that you're going through at the exact same time. 20 minutes, let's call it, of putting food on a piece of wood, and I am back in my body again, my friends. So find your version, okay? I don't care what you do. Go pull the weeds, go fold the towels, walk the block, reorganize a drawer that did not need reorganizing, because why not, right? The drawer is not the point. The point is reminding your own nervous system that you are still the one driving this thing, okay? Three, who you hand it to. Two people, guys. And I'm gonna repeat that. Two. I've done the 14. I've done the 14, okay? And all that does is make you live it 14 more times with 14 different sets of opinions. And a couple of those people are probably even enjoying it a little bit. You never know. But you know it, and I know it. So pick the two who love you and will tell you the truth, even when it costs them something, all right? Everybody else gets, we're good, thanks for asking, and you change the subject. That's not being closed off. That's knowing what your story's worth is, okay? Four, whether you stay in your own life while it's happening. Okay, so this is gonna be the expensive one. This is the one that takes something that you actually don't get back. I have sat at my own dinner table with my own kids talking to me and been completely somewhere else. Anyone resonate with that out there? Right there, nodding, but gone, and those dinners don't come back. And I feel like that's the real bill. It's not the stress, but it's the missing it. You know what I mean? You look up, you gave away actual days of your life to something that wasn't even yours to carry. So now the spinning gets a container, it gets a window, right? I'll think about it in the car or 15 minutes at night. And outside of that, I'm here, guys. Am I good at it? Absolutely not. Am I better than I was, though? Yes. Since starting to try and practice this, it has helped immensely. Naming it as a choice made it a choice instead of just the weather that happened to me, right? Now, number five, who you are while it's happening. This one I would tattoo on people if you would let me. I'd make it cute, all right. Anybody can be gracious when it's easy. Your character isn't who you are on your best day with everybody else watching you. It's what's left of you when you're tired and you're not getting any credit, and nobody is clapping for you. And when something's hard, there's always a smaller version of you available. Sharper, knows exactly where the soft spot is and would be so good at it. You could go there. You'd feel better for about, I don't know, 11 minutes. Just don't. And not because I'm telling you to be a saint. I'm not one. And I don't want to be one. Saints are exhausting, all right? Because the second you go there, you hand over the one thing that nobody can take unless you give it to them, which is knowing exactly who you are. Remember my Moana episode, guys. Whatever happens out there, I want to be able to look at myself after and go, I stayed me. It didn't get harder, it didn't get smaller, nobody doled my sparkle. And I'd rather lose the whole entire thing than lose that, if I'm being honest. So, your response, your hands, your circle, your presence, your character, five. That's the list, my friends. Everything else is just weather. Now, I'm not gonna stand up here and tell you that you decide this one time and then you're free, because that's a lie, and you know it was a lie. It's a practice, okay? You'll set it down and it'll be right back by the time you hit lunch. That's not you failing at it, though. That's setting down is the thing. Over and over as many times as it takes forever. So here's the tool. And actually do it, please. Are you gonna do it? Don't just listen, actually do it. Whatever's been living rent-free in your head, girl, get it out of you right now. Wherever you are, the car, the kitchen, on a walk, I don't care. Say it out loud. Ready? Here we go. That is not mine to carry. Did that feel good? Okay. And when it shows up tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. before your eyes are even open, I want you to say it again. That's it. That's the whole practice. And listen, that is not denial. We're not gonna live in denial land either. I'm not telling you it doesn't matter, it doesn't hurt, it matters, and it hurts. I'm saying it isn't yours to hold. And you get to take your hands off of it one more time. Here's the last thing. And it's the thing I actually came on here to say. You can be in the middle of something hard and still be building. You do not have to be okay to be allowed to want a good life for yourself, your family, so on and so forth. You can cry in the shower at 6:30 and go run your business at nine. Both, same woman, same day. It can happen. You can be completely misunderstood by somebody who was never gonna understand you and still be a phenomenal mom and still be the most honest person in any room you walk into and still be building something that is going to outlast every single bit of this. And nobody tells you that. Okay? Everybody acts like you have to wait for it to resolve first. No, we're not doing that. Because most things don't resolve, they just get smaller as your life gets bigger. How does it feel to hear that? So go make your life bigger. That's it. That's the whole strategy. That's all I've got. It's the only thing that has ever worked for me. Five things, you guys. Your response, your hands, your circle, your presence, your character, everything else you set down today and again tomorrow, and again the day after that. And that's normal. And if it was bullshit, it was bullshit. Let's call a spade a spade, okay? You don't have to find the silver lining today. You just have to decide who you're going to be about it. Let it be theirs. And let this, your life, your people, your work, the whole shiny thing you're building, let that be yours, you guys. And hear me. Hear me again, one last time. You've got this, girl. Okay? You have got this. You have gotten through every single hard day so far with a hundred percent success rate. That has to feel good. Don't let anybody dole your sparkle over something that was never yours to carry. The truth always comes out. It does. It always does. Just keep being the person it's going to prove right. If this one hit, please do me a favor. Send it to the woman in your life who's white knuckling something right now. She's not going to tell you that she needs it, but send it anyways. And if you've got 30 seconds I ask you a favor, leave a review. That's genuinely how other women find the show. And I really want to share wisdom and empowerment with all the women out there. I'm Jenny Blackwood. Whatever you're carrying that was never yours, put it down and go get the thing that you actually want. Because I'm asking you this, and I want you all to ask yourselves too. Girl, why not you? Have a great day, everybody, and I can't wait to talk to you next week. If something in this episode made you sit up a little straighter or dream a little bigger, don't ignore it. That's your future nudging you. I'm living proof that you can start messy, start scared, start in the worst timing, and still create something beautiful. Thank you for listening to Girl, Why Not You. Now go take one small step towards the life you've been craving. Hit subscribe, leave a review if you feel called, and share this with someone who's ready for more.