Beyond the Shoulds: Empowering Your Family Planning Decisions

again it's about connecting with the people that matter to you being intentional about making plans seeing

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your friends seeing friends that like light you up that help you stay grounded in more you know compassionate kind

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narratives and ways of thinking I have some amazing friends that help me stay grounded and sort of help me see the big

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picture more realistically I think sometimes as individuals we are worst critics we are our perspective on things

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is bit blurred and sometimes we need people who love us to show us more

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clearly that the the [Music]

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picture hi guys I am doing another solo episode today and I'm not sure these

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will ever get easy for me um and I say that because I guess it's

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telling because I am a therapist and as a therapist we do talk you know but

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we're listeners we're holding space for someone else so I think I've always struggled with kind of owning the

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spotlight and having the spotlight and being the one talking and sharing um

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it's kind of funny because we have been talking about uh celebration burnout and you know the idea being that

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we celebrate people a lot of people for a lot of other things and for me I I

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experienced that but also I was thinking about that in that and in sort of the aligned with the spotlight thing is the

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first thing I celebrated for myself was 40 years old my baby shower and as an identical twin like I share birthday you

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share a lot of things but you know I was always going to everybody else's stuff and when it was a celebration for

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me it was really it was beautiful I was grateful but it was really uncomfortable

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um so that's a little bit of a tangent U about just like doing this whole episode

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kind of my voice being center stage but I have something really important I want

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to talk about today something that I am personally struggling with and and working to improve on every day and that's this

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idea of putting so much pressure on things and I think for me personally and

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professional as a professionally as a therapist I see the impact of the pressure that we put

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on ourselves and a lot of what we talk about on here is that societal pressure that external pressure that internal

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pressure that word should and I joke about this all the time but if you any

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of my former or current clients are listening the word

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should puts so much pressure on ourselves like it implies that we're not doing something

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right that we're not doing enough of something that what we're doing currently is not good enough right like

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the idea of I should be in a relationship or I should be at this

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place in my career at this point the word should puts so much pressure and

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judgment on where we currently are and where we currently are in our life and on our journey and you know in my work

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is a therapist I always encourage people to bring awareness to the word should and how much they're using it throughout

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the day and when I prompt my clients to do this they come back sort of in shock

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like saying I I use the word should all of the time this pressure that we put on

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ourselves and currently where I'm struggling or where I'm working right a reframe there what I'm working on is

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taking the pressure off the timeline of a second baby and it's challenging I'm

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not here to say that that's easy at all I'm you know on a humanize and normalize that I'm struggling with this as well

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and the way I'm trying to do that is really

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intentionally um you know as someone that believes in having these conversation and believes in doing the

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work to take the pressure off ourselves to empower our own paths to create our own blueprints like I struggle with this

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stuff too and I struggled with it previously when I was single at 34 I struggled with it when at 37 I froze my

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eggs and didn't have my son till 40 so it comes up and I you know having had

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that Journey it is helping me this time around where I'm feeling that pressure

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again where I'm feeling like I'm up against the clock at 43 trying to have

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another baby but even though I've lived it even though I know the value of taking the

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pressure off the pressure still shows up and then the question is what do I do with that and how do I work through that

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some of the things that I'm doing to mitigate the pressure is a lot of gratitude and again these are

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intentional practices because if I'm being really honest like I'm stressed and I am anxious about the timeline and

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not only the timeline that just the desire to have the thing that I want and I think that shows up a lot right like

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we might really want the partnership and we might really want the baby and we desire these things so deeply so it's

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not just about you know honoring the timeline but it's like yeah I get that and things

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will show up when they're supposed to show up but I also want this thing right now I wanted this thing for so long and

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I think that can be really difficult to hold and to um sit with

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because you know we're in we're it's hard to stay patient for things you really really want I also think too we

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live in such a a society now that is like instant gratification like there are a lot of

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things that we can have when we want them we have access to so much stuff information ability to buy stuff ability

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to like have it at our doorstep in minutes so I think we're also in this culture of like instant

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gratification and there's a lot of areas of Our Lives where patience does not have to apply because we can get a lot

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of the things that we want ASAP like I think about sort of this idea and I you

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know binging on Netflix we I remember when I was little every Sunday night my

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sister my mom and I would sit down and watch Murder She Wrote and then you have to wait an entire week for the next

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episode and even As I Grew Older there were shows I would think about like Beverly Hills 902 and0 I love that or

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M's place where like you watch the episode and you had to wait an entire

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week for the next episode and you know that was normalized where now a season

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comes out and we can completely binge it or do you guys ever notice like I guess

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the love blood his blindness does this they like put out six episodes and then you're like oh my God I have to wait a

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week for the next six and like we're not used to that waiting anymore we're not used to sort of implementing the skill

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of patients because a lot of What Not a lot of you know things in our world we

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don't have to wait for anymore in the ways that we used to have to wait for them

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um so for me being in the waiting being

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in a place where I feel like the clock is ticking being in the place where I

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greatly desire this thing and this thing being a second baby and expanding my

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family there's a lot of turmoil there but there's a lot of choice there too

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and I think the intentionality is important for me I have intentionally

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tried to slow down because when I slow down I can be more grounded in things

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that are going well things that I can be grateful for little moments of Joy when

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I'm moving too quickly through the day it's it is all stress it is all bad

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narratives it is all I should be doing this or I don't have enough time to do

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this or this the stress and pressure is really really heavy when I'm moving too

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quickly through my day so what slowing down has looked like for me

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is getting outside for lunch getting out from the computer and making a good meal

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and sitting outside in my backyard and for those of you that live in the city

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where there is not much Greenery like just get out for a walk and move slowly

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right so I'm in intentional about how quickly I eat I'm intentional about

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sitting down when I eat um and and that's not easy because while I'm doing

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that it's almost like you know training and rewiring my brain because as I'm doing that I'm thinking of all the

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things I have to do and so now I have this Choice do I like scarf down this meal real quick to get back to the tasks

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into the to-dos or do I take a beat do I slow down do I sit do I enjoy my meal

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and again these are intentional choices I'm trying to make and that has helped

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me tremendously just getting outside it's nicer out now it's sunny which

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always helps everybody's mood um you know sitting in my house in front of a

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computer when it's beautiful out also impacts my mood so getting outside

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slowing down and eating a good meal has been helpful for me the other thing I've been trying to do is I'm getting out for

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walks um I'm putting in my earpods putting on a podcast and I am going for

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at least a 30 minute walk and again it's an intentional choice to get out of the tasks of the day to get out of the

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to-dos and to just move and you know and it's everybody's like schedule dependent I know a lot of us are back well me my

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office is my home but a lot of us might be back in office so sometimes that's not possible but there's other ways to

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to slow down like I I don't know if everybody saw the real or my story where I talked about how quickly I was moving

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in Whole Foods and like I was making all these mistakes things were falling things were just like not

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cooperating and then I the checkout lady is watching me fumble over everything

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and um she said I say h nothing's working out this morning she goes no you

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just need to slow down so sometimes slowing down can just be a slower pace

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through your day through your task like moving with more ease instead of that like frenzied anxiety feeling um or that

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rushed feeling right like and it would be it's interesting to think about just

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how you approach the day and I just try to do things more slowly even if it's

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the same task even if it's like you know try to do the dishes in between sessions like I'm just trying to do it at a

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slower piece and I've found that really really helpful the other thing I'm doing

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is really working to prioritize things um you know I'm someone that really

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operates Well when things are tidy when things are organized when things are in their

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place but what I'm learning to do is recognize that sometimes that's not the priority sometimes the priority is the

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walk outside sometimes the priority is sitting down for lunch and choosing and

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making the choice that those things are the priority over like folding the laundry and knowing that the laundry

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will get folded it will get put away but little choices to prioritize things that

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take care of my mental health especially when I'm in a state of feeling the pressure on this strong desire for a

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second child um because it's not easy to hold that it's not easy to sit with that

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it's not easy to be completely out of feeling like you are out of control in terms of when the outcome comes and

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that's a huge emotional tool so I I find these other supportive emotional mental

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health things that I can do for myself really help me carry the weight of that

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a bit more another thing that I try to do is practice gratitude whether that's

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just um making like a mental note whether that's journaling really looking at all the things I have now um instead

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of being focused on what I don't have and being grateful for you know having

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my son being grateful for my business being grateful for the opportunity to

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choose to slow down I often can especially when I am locked into a

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desired outcome I can really Overlook all the things that are going well all

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the things I already have and it's not helpful at all to overlook

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those things because when I'm only focused on what I don't have I'm now in

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this place of lack I'm in this place of scarcity I'm in this place of sadness I'm in this place of longing and it's

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it's very hard to be there um and so when I can shift all of that is still

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there but when I can create space and be more expansive in in what I can feel in

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the same moment like and I make space for that gratitude and I make space for what's going well

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it helps balance out the weight of what I don't have yet and thinking about the value of

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gratitude is huge and I it's another exercise I prompt my clients to do is to

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be mindful of gratitude and what's interesting when I do this exercise

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myself or I prompt clients to do this exercise like it's hard to think about what we're grateful for because I don't

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think it's a mindset that is traditionally been encouraged or talked about or awareness brought to it so I

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think it's hard to train our brains to think about things that we're grateful

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for and it can be anything you know my my clients would make lists and they say well I'm grateful I have you know Wi-Fi

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and and they would think that was silly because it wasn't deep enough and I

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think you know anything you can be grateful for counts there's no like

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something counts and something doesn't count um so I think that's a really

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great tool supportive mindset to in again probably have to consciously

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intentionally wire your brain to be that way and that's creating you know that could help by creating a a daily

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practice to do that or every morning thinking about two or three things that you're grateful for or in those moments

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where you trying to slow down bring awareness to what is what is

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going well right now what about my day is good and I often think that we don't

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think about those things enough or even slow down enough to think about those things and I think that's really really

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important so if you find yourself putting pressure on yourself about where you should be where you

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aren't yet I really encourage you to think about well where am I right now and what's really great about

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where I am right now and what could be the purpose of where I am right now I have

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been really trying to stay grounded in what is the purpose of all this you know

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when I look back at my life and what has worked out in the way that it has worked out it does surprisingly all make sense

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I've said this before there was so much angst around being 37 and freezing my

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eggs and being 38 39 not a mother yet and then having my son at 40 I'm like oh

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my gosh this all makes sense this was the way it was supposed to happen this was the timing that was right for me and

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it's hard to know that as you're going through it but trusting that it will

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come to you in the time that it's meant to you is is so helpful it's hard but I've been

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trying to stay grounded that too I had an amazing call with um my one of my

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mentors coaches support systems and we were talking through all of this stuff

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and talking through what I don't have yet and when is it coming and the

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timelines you know I'm Justice susceptible to all this stuff is everybody listening and she said to me

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well when hasn't what she said how did she say Well when hasn't it worked out

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I want to say that again asking yourself well when hasn't it worked out and that statement stopped me in my tracks I

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started crying something with it something about it resonated with me so

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so hard that it was like light bul moment like oh my God Beth like why are

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you stressing like things have worked out and worked out beautifully have worked out like better than I can even

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imagine and I just think about you know meeting Rob at 34 and having Dean at 40

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and just you know where my business has grown to and the opportunities I have

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and you know I'm like oh my God it's all always worked out like I have no

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evidence that it hasn't worked out and then and again it's worked out in ways

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that is are more beautiful than I could even have imagined and I hold that statement so closely to

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my heart now because when I'm in those moments where the pressure is really heavy the stress is really heavy the

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uncertainty and the unknowns are so heavy I just remind myself you know

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where's the evidence that it hasn't worked out and for sure like some things

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in my life have not worked out the way that I wanted but the big important things that matter to me have worked out

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in a way that I just couldn't even imagine and I think back to you know

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previous relationships and you know where I might be if I was still in those

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and obviously the devastation of those ending but then it you know opens up this new opportunity to meet Rob who is

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just like for me my person so happy

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um yeah so it's just trusting that things will work out and also looking

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back at evidence of like where hasn't it where hasn't it worked out like where do we have that evidence that tells us like

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the thing that we desire doesn't eventually come to us and you know I think you can go on Instagram and see so

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many stories of of and I love when people these put these stories out how like an ending led to a More Beautiful

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Beginning and trusting that you know what is meant for us will come to us you

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know sometimes that's hard hard to hold then I think that's why it's important to have other supportive tools like I

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mentioned to you know help our our emotional and mental health and

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connection is another one I'm finding so important for myself um it can be really

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hard especially someone that works remotely mostly working from home it can

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be really really isolating and I think from those places of isolation is when those bad narratives are louder when

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it's not as easy to use our tools so I've been finding getting out and

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connecting and sometimes that might still mean by myself but like it's out of my house there is still like

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interaction with other people which I love and enjoy and then again it's about

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connecting with the people that matter to you being intentional about making plans seeing your friends seeing friends

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that like light you up that help you stay grounded in more you know

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compassionate kind narratives and ways of thinking I have some amazing friends that help me stay grounded in gratitude

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and sort of help me see the big picture more realistically I think sometimes as individuals we are worst critics we are

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our perspective on things is a bit blurred and sometimes we need people who

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love us to show us more clearly that the the picture I remember so clearly I was

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this was so many years ago be before yeah before I met Rob I was training for

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the New York City marathon I forget where I was in my career I might have still been in

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school but anyways I I was doing a lot of things and there were a lot of accomplishment accomplishments happening

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um but I remember feeling these same things like what am I I'm not doing

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anything I'm not doing enough everybody else is doing all of these things I'm so behind and my friend at the time that I

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was training with said to me she's like hold on Beth what about this this this this you're doing that thing you've done

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this thing and I was like oh my God you're right I never saw it that way and so I think it's so helpful to have those

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friends in life and those people in your life that will just like sort of check you and be like well let's just try to

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look at it a different way and sometimes we need that because we can't see it ourselves um I feel like I'm rambling

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but all this to say is that we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and sometimes

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it is unnecessary pressure and I think deciphering between narratives that are helpful and

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motivating versus narratives that are harmful is really important because I think

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sometimes a little bit of pressure can be helpful and healthy we just have to

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watch where it crosses over that line where it becomes problematic and harmful

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and it starts to perpetuate you know the inner critic that voice gets loud these really

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unhelpful narratives about what we don't have what we're not doing what we should have that we don't have yet and it's a

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really really slippery slope if we're not mindful if we're not bringing awareness to the things that we're

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saying to ourselves um I think there's a lot of value in identifying the things that you

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want and getting really clear on what you want and sometimes most times we

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don't get to decide the when and I think it's about getting really clear on the

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things that you want and living a life that aligns with your values living a life that is intentional living a life

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that is brings you Joy and fulfillment while you and I don't want to say wait

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while you live until these things come to you because so many other things are amazing

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things are are probably happening and that's really a good reminder for myself too that there's so many amazing things

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going on even though right now you know my desire is to be pregnant there's so

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many other amazing things going on and I know I trust and I have evidence from

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previous life experience that that when it does happen in the time that it happens it's going to make so much sense

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and the thing that I said earlier about like kind of asking ourselves these questions like what is the

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purpose I would think for myself and I'll kind of walk through all the big important things in my life that I have

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desired and didn't come in the time that I thought they would that created so much angst for me um um so meeting Rob

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at 34 I think the purpose for that for me you know and I don't that's like not

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late in life but if we're like talking about societal standards like that is late in life and so funny I'm watching

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um the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader documentary which is like so problematic

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on so many levels but these girls are like 24 years old getting married and

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like you know engaged and one of the girls is actually she's also 24 and she's like I am behind in this game of

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life and I'm like oh my God you're only 24 but you know so meeting robit 34 by

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societal standards was like so late in the game and again caused me so much angst and like stress and

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self-judgment and probably external judgment about like you know I always got the why are you single which was a

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question that pissed me off so much because I'm like I don't I don't know and I think I came to find out why it

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was my own stuff and my own attachment style and things I had to work through but for me the purpose of meeting Rob at

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34 and again sometimes this stuff is hindsight which is so it just kind of sucks it's hindsight

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because if we knew these things while we're going through it we would we would be happier we wouldn't be as sad or I definitely wouldn't have been um but at

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34 based on what I had been through what I had learned through other relationships what I had learned about

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myself I was way way way more clear on what I wanted of a partner and what I needed out of a partner and partnership

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and what kind of partner I wanted to be prior to meeting Rob I you know I just

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didn't feel like I could show up myself in these other relationships or situationships and when I met Rob I was

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so unapologetically myself and did not like try to play the cool girl or be

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anyone else but myself and and that's what worked and I think that's what really attracted him to me um and I

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don't think I could have been there before 34 so for me I think that was the purpose of meeting my partner later in

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life the purpose of having my son at 40 again

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hindsight um I got to do so much in my 30s Rob and I got to do so much together

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before having having Dean like we traveled everywhere we got to live

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spontaneously um we just did so much before having him and and I got to build

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a business that I love a career that I love which you know is not impossible

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with with children but it you know your time is just different um and even bigger than that I know that I'm a

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better mother for it I am way more patient I have the opportunity to have a

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different amount of time I have the opportunity to have a different you know different type of resources so that was

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the purpose for me now I see of becoming a mother at 40 and again it's hard to

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know these things while we're in it while we're in the waiting while we're in the desire but I think when you're there

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asking yourself what could be the purpose of this and I think I shared this on my last solo episode um while

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the for fertility Journey has been really really hard and really really challenging I have always stayed

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connected to there is a bigger purpose for this and I think it allows me to

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relate to more women and you know women that come on this podcast women that reach out to me it certainly allows me

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to be a louder voice to advocate for lots more conversation lots more

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information um that I want to pay forward I I learned a lot have learned a

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lot I continue to learn a lot through my experience that I just want to continue to pay forward and help other women with

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um so I feel like there's a lot of purpose in that and I don't know know

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yet the purpose of the timeline for maybe baby number two or when that will even happen but I know it will be

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purposeful I know the timing will make sense whenever that timing is and really

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working to let go of the pressure I'm putting on that um I was asked another

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really amazing question by another woman that I'm working with and who is supporting me through all of this was

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was and I I put this in the newsletter that we sent out but for anyone that didn't read I want to mention it here

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which is to think about you know how my biggest gifts in life and my two biggest gifts in life

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are Rob and Dean and she asked me to think about kind of where I was when those gifts came to me and I was

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like I was in a state of like happiness and joy and gratitude and full

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acceptance and even Pride about where I was in my life you know before I met Rob I really leaned into my being single had

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leaned into my life was really grateful for the life I built and everything that I had and I was there was no pressure on

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meeting anybody I was kind of like all right like maybe this is not meant for me and that's okay I'm going to choose

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to be happy and then Rob came into my life and saying with having Dean you know for Rob and I there were hard

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conversations for for years about children or timelines and getting on the

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same page and we were kind of in a very difficult spot and uh we were worked

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through that and we kind of just said you know what pressure off let's just see what happens and two weeks later I I

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was pregnant so again it is not easy to take the pressure off but so much can

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happen when you do not only will the things probably come to you you'll just

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feel better like I feel better when the pressure is off when I can be in more

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gratitude when I can slow down when can be an acceptance you just feel better

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and again like you know figuring out where that line is with that healthy amount of pressure I think there's you

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know timelines or deadlines I should say not timelines deadlines create a little bit of pressure but then the thing gets

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done so really identifying the pressure that is unhelpful to you and working to take

30:52

that pressure off and finding ways that are helpful for you to do that will be a

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game changer will probably help things flow to you more easily the things that

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you've desired will come to you and you get to live lighter you get to live

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happier um and I think the other thing which can be really hard and could help

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but help take the pressure off is attaching less to an outcome and more to

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the journey right and so the outcomes are unknown the timelines are un unknown

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and often I think we attach to that outcome and we miss the whole Journey

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part I think there's so much Beauty in the journey whether it's messy hard challenging exciting adventurous that's

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the stuff I think that really matters um so whatever you're putting pressure on

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now maybe identifying the thing that you put the pressure on the most and then asking yourself what can I do to take

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some of this pressure off and again I've offered some things here um that have been helpful to me and

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I think it's a continuous work I think it's daily choices I think it's micro choices every day to just live in a

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state of acceptance and presence versus anxiety and angst and and troil

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so I hope this episode was helpful I feel like I rambled for a very long time

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um but yeah just essentially like what are you putting pressure on how can you take the pressure off what

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is the purpose of this time in your life what is the value of this time in your life what do you learning what are you

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learning to understand about yourself asking yourself those qu questions and shifting out of I don't have this thing

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yet to I have all these amazing things right now and this is all the things I'm learning and this is at this point in my

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life this is the experiences I'm having and here's what I'm taking away from these experience so if we really are

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inten about how we think about things it can shift and change so so much so I

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hope this for all of you listening that there's an opportunity to take some pressure off to be more present to be in

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more acceptance of where you are now to love where you are now um and just enjoy

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your life a bit more and these are reminders for me this is as much an episode for me as it is for everybody else because I am working to do that

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myself and I hope you enjoyed this Soul episode if you did let me know if there's other

33:31

things that you want me to talk about let me know um I kind of hopped on here no not knowing exactly what I was going

33:37

to talk about I had a couple things I wanted to talk about um and I do want to talk about relationship stuff so maybe

33:44

that'll be the next solo episode but if there's anything you want to hear me talk about topics I want to talk about

33:49

therapeutic topics you want me to talk about I can go kind of more to therapist mode let me know shoot us an email at

33:57

hello at quiet thee clock.com um DM me let me know give me some feedback let me

34:03

know what you want to hear also don't forget to subscribe to our Channel on YouTube give us a review on Apple we

34:10

love all love and appreciate all the support and I'll talk to everybody soon if you're someone struggling or relating

34:16

to the topics that we're talking about now and you're feeling the anxiety or the stress or the pressure of feeling

34:21

like you're running out of time you're behind and you want some extra support check out my group therapy practice in

34:29

Midtown Manhattan NYC therapeutic Wellness we have an amazing team of clinicians ready to support you in your

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journey to help you feel more grounded to help you feel more grateful to help you feel like you're just exactly where

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you need to be so check us out at www.nyc therapeutic wellness.com

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