Margaret Robinson Rutherford, Ph.D. ,a clinical psychologist with thirty years of experience, is also an author, TedX speaker, and podcast host. Her book, "Perfectly Hidden Depression: How to Break Free from the Perfectionism That Masks Your Depression", has reached thousands here in the US, as well as having an international impact, with translations reaching from Korea to Italy, Turkey to Germany. Her highly popular podcast, The SelfWork Podcast, has been continuously rated as one of the best podcasts for mental health and depression.
545: Perfectly Hidden Depression
Dr. Margaret Rutherford
In this conversation, Margaret Rutherford discusses the concept of Perfectly Hidden Depression, a form of depression characterized by perfectionism and high achievement, often masked by a facade of success. She explains how this type of depression differs from traditional depression, emphasizing the difficulty individuals face in expressing their emotions. Hunter and Margaret explore the roots of perfectionism, the impact of childhood experiences, and the societal pressures that contribute to emotional suppression. Rutherford offers insights into breaking generational cycles and practical steps for parents to begin their journey towards emotional freedom and self-acceptance.
Ep 545- Rutherford
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
Dr. Margaret Rutherford (00:00.14)
She feels this intense need to do the absolutely best right thing all the time. But she kind of feels this trap of now I can't let anybody know that I'm floundering, that I struggle.
Hunter (00:16.622)
You are listening to the Mindful Mama Podcast episode number 545 and today we talking about Perfectly Hidden Depression with Dr. Margaret Rutherford.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have. And when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clarke-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting Course & Teacher Training, and I'm the author of the international bestseller, “Raising Good Humans”, “Raising Good Humans Every Day”, and the “Raising Good Humans Guided Journal”.
Hey you, I see you there, high achiever. Maybe doing everything well, successful, all that? Well this is maybe an important episode for you to listen to. I'm talking to Dr. Margaret Rutherford, a psychologist with over 30 years of experience and author of the book, “Perfectly Hidden Depression: How to Break Free from Perfectionism that Masks Your Depression”. And we're going to talk about this idea of depression that is characterized by high achievement and kind of masked by this facade of success and how people with perfectly hidden depression can really have difficulty expressing their emotions. And we're to talk about the roots of perfectionism, childhood experiences, societal pressures, all that stuff that contributes to it. If you are a high achiever, this is an important episode for you to listen to. And you may know some people. right away that you want to share this episode, with I imagine.
So join me at the table. I talked to Dr. Margaret Rutherford.
Hunter (02:56)
Well, Margaret, thank you so much for coming on the mindful mama podcast.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford (03:04)
I'm delighted to be here. I have read your book and I'm, you know, in fact, that's how I spent my weekend. And I think the mindful mamas are lucky to have you. So that's great.
Hunter (03:26)
That's so nice of you to say, thank you. I’m excited to talk about perfectly hidden depression to your listener. And this kind of this type of depression that we don't typically think of as depression. And I was wondering if maybe you could just start us off by explaining what perfectly hidden depression is and how it's different from the traditional understanding of depression.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford (03:43)
Sure. Maybe it would help to tell a little bit of a story about how I actually came upon that term. Yes. It was 2014. I had no ideas about, plans to write a book, no plans to have a podcast, none of that. But I was thinking about, but I had started blogging and I was thinking about some people I had seen over the years that when they walked through my door, would have vehemently denied that they were depressed in any way. In fact, they would probably say, you know, I have too many blessings. have a great life. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm just here because I'm a little anxious or having a little bit of relationship problem or something. But what I did learn and what bonded those people together, what they all shared was a huge difficulty in expressing painful emotion. Now they could say they felt a painful emotion, but they, to show it to me, to express it, to actually feel it in that moment, no. They'd say things like, I'm just not a crier or, you know, gosh, if I started crying, I'd cry all day long, that kind of thing.
I thought about those folks and I just picked the term out of the air, the perfectly hidden depressed person, or U1 was the name of the blog. And it went viral and I was writing for the HuffPost at that point and they featured it and I got hundreds of emails. wow. Hundreds in the 24 hour period of time. People saying things like, it's like you're in my head. How do you know about this? So I got curious. Brene Brown had written her first book called “The Gifts of Imperfection”. I read that. There was a great book, it's still a great book by Terrence Real called “I Don't Want to Talk About It” that talked about more covert depression in men. But there's a little bit of a difference here because your listeners may have heard the term high functioning depression, which is basically people who know they are depressed.
They will say, I'm really depressed, but I just seem to be able to pull it together enough to go to work or to get my kids to school and that kind of thing. And I'm really, I'm geared toward that. I'm in therapy, I'm taking medication, I'm exercising, I'm doing whatever they're going to do. And the term for that is high functioning depression. The difference between that as I see it and perfectly hidden depression is that a lot of these people will not reveal that they're oppressed. They don't even want to call it that because they have for years likely, for years have been covering up or camouflaging what has been a lot of childhood pain and trauma with this perfect seeming self was the way they handled all of that- you know, not consciously, It just became protective, just seemed like, I'm okay, I'm good, I'm good. And so I started writing about it and people began writing me, I want to talk to you, and I interviewed over 60 people for the book. And I've just been blown away by the response because it has been, it's been notable for sure.
So this is, so normally when I think of depression, think of, know, tiredness, sadness, fatigue, of a hopelessness, right? And you're this perfectly hidden depression, the way you describe it your book, it's like perfectionism and high achievement. So I'm wondering then kind of, you know, what are the signs that someone might be suffering from this? But I also kind of want to understand it more. there, you're, there's achieving a lot, it's a sense of sadness and hopelessness underneath that.
Hunter (08:04)
maybe they feel that in the shower or some very private moment that they have a flash of something's wrong. Something is wrong. Something's off. But they may or may not have that insight. That has been probably one of the more dramatic responses to the book because people say there's something about you saying the term “perfectly hidden depression” and I know that's what I've been doing. But if I said, you know, are you sad? No, no, I'm not sad. It takes a little bit of, it takes trust, it takes courage, it takes literally taking your armor off, your perfect, your perfect semi-life, you've worn as an armor. And it's literally risking taking it off and trying to understand maybe what's underneath there for the first time in your life. For the very first time in your life. That's gotta be incredibly scary for people.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford (09:16)
It is. You're exactly right. To admit that there's something, is it something about are people ashamed of the imperfection? You betcha. The whole thing that, I mean, what drives it are these voices of shame that you can't let anybody know that, you know, who you really are, or you can't ever divulge any kind of vulnerability. And that shaming voice, critical shaming voice is just constant. You know, we all have this sort of self-talk that's going on in the background all the time- orchestra that's playing that we can either listen to all the time or choose not to listen to it. But these people have an ongoing dialogue, not like hallucinatory, not like, but we all have thoughts about the day, how we editorialize, right? And so it is about, you know, catching that shame. And in fact, you know, one of the things, some of the publishing houses that turn the book down said, well, they told me two things. One, they said, nobody knows who you are, which was true. And then they said, we don't think people who need to seem perfect will buy the book. And all those people I interviewed, said, well now tell me how you'd answer this. How are you going to buy the book? They said, we'd say very loudly. It was for my sister-in-law.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford (10:51)
Will we buy the e-book or we'd find a way, we'd find a perfect way to buy it because the strength and the intensity of that message was so strong for many of them.
Hunter (11:09)
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
So this sounds like a very intense form of perfectionism. And I always think of perfectionism as basically the nothing's ever good enough feeling. I'm not good enough feeling nothing's ever good enough. And to me, it's a sense of, I don't know, I get a sense of sadness from it because that's a terrible way to live your life, thinking that you're never good enough or nothing is ever good enough. And I'm wondering where does this need for perfection come from?
Hunter (13:10)
And how does it develop over time?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford
There are lot of pathways to it. I want to say that the researchers in perfectionism actually divide perfectionism into constructive perfectionism, which doesn't have that. I can never do this perfectly enough. Constructive perfectionism is more, I'm going to put my all out all the time. That's who I prefer to be. I want to be that generous. I want to be that passionate. I want to work that hard But it maintains a sense of choice about it. And sort of a process orientation, like I'm gonna enjoy being on the hike as much as I'm going to enjoy the waterfall that's at the end, if I even get there. So you enjoy the walk, you don't necessarily have a destination that you must reach, whereas in destructive perfectionism, exactly what you just said tends to occur where if you don't reach the waterfall on the walk, it's a failure. It's a failed walk. So it's much more, like I said, destination or task-oriented, accomplishment-oriented.
Hunter:
That's a really interesting delineation. I think of it in this negative way, but yeah, there are people who are just want to do so well and that's wonderful. That can be great. I'm glad you delineated the two.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford (14:33)
Yeah, because they're very different animals. But there are, just to make things a little more complicated, in my opinion at least, there lots of families and cultures that you can grow up in that will foster or where you will develop this protective camouflage. Obviously, if you're being abused in some way and it's a big secret and you can tell no one, if you have alcoholic parents or a parent and you have to become a pseudo adult. You have to take over adult responsibilities way too soon. If you are the star of your family and what you get complimented for and where you feel the most loved is when you are doing very well. You're either very smart or you're the best athlete or whatever. And so you feel like you must maintain that. It's also going to happen. Well, males tend to get that message as well. It could be, gosh, could be, many of us grow up in families where, you know, I remember getting told, if you can't say something nice, go to your room. And you know, when you can be sweet, come out. If I were angry or sad or something. You know, it's, how we're parented, it's how our culture says about that. So there are lots of ways to get there. And it's so interesting to me because when people have this aha moment, they go, oh, yeah, I did that. I can remember deciding I was not going to allow my feelings to show. I was going to pretend that everything was fine. I was going to go to school so I wouldn't have to go home. I was going to be everything at school or I needed to get out or whatever it is. and of course our society, I mean, we love perfection. That's true. We at our jobs, we slap each other on the back and say, great job. If somebody volunteers in the community and we, you know, makes for a nonprofit, what is the first thing people say? We want you to do it next year because nobody's ever done it as well as you have. There's the hook. And so we reward perfectionism. so it is a, as my grandma used to say, it's a sticky wicked, you when you're trying to take that apart and think, well, how could I begin to detach from this need to not look like I have a care in the world?
I have someone I'm seeing right now who's come in specifically for this reason. And she looked at me and she said, I just wish someone else would take the lead. said everybody, know, she, well, I'm not going to say what her situation is, but she's a parent and other parents who have children like hers, will wait for her to do something to make a move and then they follow her. And she feels this intense need to do the absolutely best right thing all the time. And she does things very well. But she kind of feels this trap of now I can't let anybody know that I'm floundering, that I struggle with my child's I can't let on. I've just got to go, well sure, we're going to do this. We're going to make this work. it's, I've defined it as or described it as kind of a, it's a prison within because you can't let yourself feel emotions. So you're staving off your internal, you're staving off emotions that may sometimes try to seep to the surface, but you're also guarding that prison from the outside because you don't want anybody to know about your struggle. So it's an inner battle and an outer battle.
Hunter (18:59)
It's interesting. It reminds me, it seems adjacent to emotional labor. The idea of, you know, where we're trying to make everybody feel good, you know, make sure everybody is feeling good and regulated. And part of that is making sure we are happy and okay, and everything is good with us, right? So in a way it's kind of adjacent to that sort of emotional labor conversation. I would recommend just check out the book or the interview with Rose Hackman. Maybe I'll introduce you to her, but the idea that there is labor to help everybody in a room say feel- don't know that term, but to be regulated at ease and it sounds like- how do you do that?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford (20:12)
Well, part of it, right, is that we are okay, like everything's good with us. There's nothing to process here. Nothing's wrong here to talk about, right? And it sounds like part of that is perfectionism is like, I'm doing well and I'm being rewarded, right? For doing well and being rewarded for doing well at whatever I'm doing, in my, know, doing what mom or dad says at home, doing, getting the grades of school, looking good. And also like, not having any problems that anybody else might have to deal with or adjust to, right?
Hunter:
So there's a lot of, what I'm kind of hearing you say with this is there's a lot of suppression of emotion and emotional expression. Is that right?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford:
Yes, the term that is more used in my circle is toxic positivity. That it is a, you know, you're filled with gratitude and, you, you know, uh, I think in the black church, they say, I'm too blessed to be stressed. And so, you know, the, that mentality of, of if I'm grateful, then that's what must dominate. my thinking rather than I can be grateful. mean, like you, you and I were talking about this interview I had very early this morning. I was grateful to do the interview, but it also stunk that I had to get up at 430 this morning. So, you know, everything is an and to me. I can feel grateful and I can feel tired. I can feel grateful and I can be sad sometimes. Um, if you have four kids, you wanted a big family. You've got what you, you, you wanted. That's wonderful. Please be grateful for that. There are a lot of people who can't do that. And that's for lunches and for. Proms and for soccer games every weekend and for college tuitions if everybody wants to go to college. And so, you know, it's, it's, it has its, it has its downside too. And I think, by definition, in fact what I like to say is by definition the glass is half full and half empty at the same time. It's just by definition.
Hunter:
Yeah, it would have to be. It's interesting. I'm thinking about like how we would maybe prevent generational cycles with that, but also when we're thinking of raising kids, right? Or the way we are with our kids. I mean, a lot of humans, we know that humans have a negativity bias, right? We know that they are more prone to focusing on the problems and the negative things than we are the positive things because evolutionarily that made sense to the people who stopped and spelled the you know, she did not. As a parent, don't really encourage griping and complaining from with my kid, right? Nobody does. Nobody wants to hear a bunch of gripes and complaints. So very innocently, like this could happen, right? Where you may not want to, you might have maybe encouraged your kid to be positive and, and a lot of parents today are very uncomfortable with any- so you can see how there are upset feelings or negative emotions from their kids and want to fix all the problems and make the unpleasant feelings go away, right? So you can see how it would happen. And I'm wondering if there is like, there must be some kind of middle path, I guess, in this, in thinking about how we could, parents might be able to break generational cycles associated with this kind of perfectionism.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford:
Well, and my best advice to parents, of course, the suicide rate in children and teenagers has gotten exponentially worse and have had several, I mean, many people write me and say, what can we do? And I say, be age appropriately vulnerable with your kids. Let them see you struggle. Let them see you cry about something. Again, age appropriately, you know. It would be different with a 14 year old than it would be with a four year old. Yeah. But I think if we model that it's okay, you know, that I'm still a strong person and I got scared or I'm a strong, good, good person and I got angry. Um, I'm a good person and I had a fight with my best friend. mean, you know, you, you do not have to define yourself by the things that maybe are more difficult for you to go through, just like you don't define yourself for things you do really well. mean, we all have strengths and vulnerabilities, so they all define us. so that is, I think, one of the things you can do for your kids. I had a very chaotic decade in my twenties. I'd made a lot of mistakes, a lot of mistakes. And my son called me when he was in college. Sure enough, he was struggling with something that he knew I had struggled with because I told him. And of course, I first had this mama moment of, my gosh, I can't believe it. And then he goes, mom, I called you because I knew that you'd done the same thing or something very similar. I went, you're right. Let me just listen: let me let you vent about how you feel and let me be there for you and not, you know, turn into some sort of, you know, I'm not going to condone it. didn't, I didn't, it wasn't good when I did it and it wasn't good when he did it, but it still happens. It's normal. It's not anything out of the ordinary. So it's, it's about how you approach it, how you model that openness and transparency in yourself.
Because I talk about this, like this idea that sometimes when I talk about things like expressing your emotions to your kids, if you know, when an I message, when you do this, I feel annoyed and it makes you know, when you talk to me like this, I feel frustrated and I don't, makes me not want to spend time with you, right? Like that can be a very honest expression of what's going on if you have a frustrated and teenager offering you some attitude and the pushback I get from that is “I don't want to burden my kid with my feelings. I don't want to make them have to hold my feelings”. And why do we say that is your kids know some things? They know. It's not like verbal, you know- verbal is not our only expression. We have our role, our body language, all, know, we feel the vibes. They know they have amazing BS meters if you say you're fine and you're not fine.
Hunter:
Right. And what I'm hearing from what you're saying in order to break these general generational patterns is to, is to, you said be vulnerable, be human, like be you not like the role of the perfect parent.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford
Yeah. And, and you know, a lot of people have trouble with the word vulnerability. So I've begun replacing it with transparency, which is a similar word. And I think means a lot of the same thing where you really allow yourself to express again, age appropriately, what you're feeling or what you're going through. And so, because that will give your kid permission when it's their turn to feel that pain that they'll say, well, mom talked about this. I guess I can talk about it. I guess it's okay for me to admit that I feel this way.
Hunter (28:19)
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
Hunter (30:14.092)
I love that. So we know that therapy and self-reflection can be difficult for people who are not used to or who are used to pushing aside their feelings and they're focusing on that perfect state. How do you help your patients overcome the pain of confronting painful emotions?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford (30:36.79)
Yeah, that's huge question. Slowly. It depends on several factors. It depends on how just the level of trauma they have in their life. Some people have what's called CPTSD, which is chronic PTSD, chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, and their lives have been filled with trauma. And so, you you don't want to just blithely say, start telling me about it. You you want to build a sense of safety. And so you go, I mean, not forever slowly, but they have to trust you that you are a safe, you will safely hold that space for them. And that takes some time with people who've been hurt and traumatized. You know, with people who have not that level of trauma, but have something that has happened to them that they just have never talked about, never talked about, then it's amazing what actually just hearing the words come out of your mouth, how that makes a difference, that you're sharing that secret, that pain with someone else who does not have the reaction that you've always feared.
Hunter:
What is the reaction they fear?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford (32:14.114)
Rejection. Let's say I had a woman tell me not only had her father abused her, which she told me about the first session sexually, but he'd made her sexually abuse her brother. she called and canceled her next appointment. And I said, I'm a little concerned about your cancellation. I need to come on back in and let's talk. She goes, okay, that's fine. She came in, she looked like a different person. said, well, tell me you, she said, I had so imagined over the years what someone's face would look like if I told them what I had done or been forced to do. I didn't see that look on your face. It was finally as if I was free of that. I was free of the shame of it. was, I mean, not totally, but it was this experience that, know, if I tell this, if I don't keep this secret, then no one will like me. I'll be rejected. I'll be, you know, I'll be shamed. And when they don't have that experience, that in itself could be very free.
Hunter:
That's such a testimony to the power of non-judgmental listening, And just like acceptance and listening, that's beautiful and so sad. It's like so many years to be listened to and to be able to open up. But I love that, I love that. You talk about in your book, you outline steps for breaking free of the cycle of perfectionism and hidden depression. So what are some of first steps that people can take if they're maybe recognizing themselves in some of this?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford:
Well, I think that probably one of the harder things about perfectionism because it is, again, we get rewarded for it, we hide behind it, we have all kinds of positive accolades because of it, is to begin to see it as a problem. It's kind of like anorexia, eating disorder, food restriction. That anorexia has been their go-to way of being. It's the way they hide from their feelings. It's the way they cope with the world. And so when you start saying, I think we need to talk about you, how sick you're getting, and that this is a disease, this isn't OK. They go, it's fine, it's fine, you know, because it scares them to death to begin to think about not eating, but beginning to accept and talk more about what's been going on in their life. Well, I imagine to say something's wrong at all is incredibly hard in this situation. Except for that little part that I said, you know, all those hundreds of people wrote me, it's like you're in my head. They can recognize the prison they're in. I had an email just at the beginning of the week from someone who said, I actually bought your book a couple of years ago. I've been listening to your podcast. You don't know how much this has helped me. I've been working with a therapist and I'm not even the same person I was and my life is much more free and spontaneous and fun and not always great, but it becomes its own prison. You have to do everything perfectly all the time. mean, that's, to me, that sounds completely overwhelming and exhausting.
Hunter (36:34.606)
Well, and also it doesn't- you're proving your worth over and over again. And so that sense of worthiness has to come from within. How do people move towards that?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford:
Well, it kind of depends on what the problem is., If they had trauma that they blame themselves for and shame themselves for all those years, then that can be a huge issue. If it's, maybe they're in a marriage that's really crummy or emotionally abusive, maybe they're, you know, it can, it depends on the source of the poor self-esteem and then. It could go back years, it could go back not that far. Esteem is a funny thing because you often, people will say, well, I have competencies, but I don't have esteem. have things I know that I do well, but I still struggle to think of myself as an adequate or worthy person. And that probably reflects a deeper kind of trauma.
Hunter:
Do you think that's pretty natural for most people to? I don't know. mean, it seems like only the people, it seems very natural for people to have some level of doubt or doubt in their self-worth and especially, guess, maybe here in the West, like for instance, guess I bring this up because, you know, I teach loving kindness meditation, right? Which is like, people who see a type of loving kindness is a type of love where you just for the listener for you, where you're building a sense of loving kindness in yourself for others, et cetera. And I find when I teach it that for a lot of people, it's very, very difficult to start in the traditional way with starting with yourself. May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live with ease. And for many, many people, it's much easier to start with somebody who's easy to love, generate and direct that loving kindness towards somebody who's easy to love. And then maybe on the second round, so I've experienced it so much so that I switch it where I say, let's start with somebody who's easy to love and then let's go then let's take that energy we're generated and generate, know, direct that loving kindness towards ourselves, thinking of ourselves as we are now or as a four-year-old child.
So it just seems so common and is that I mean I don't know maybe you can't answer this question like is that just innate to human beings that's part of our innate discomfort with being alive and world or is it part of how we are how we are raised, and our culture, etc. I think that's much more it. And how many people have probably been told by their parents now, don't be too high on yourself. We are confusing self-centeredness or selfishness with just being aware of caring about yourself enough to say, like myself. I even love myself. But that's like, love yourself.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford (39:53.262)
That's grandiosity. Yeah, that's narcissism. No, it's not narcissism. So it's about sort of how you were taught to consider those things. And again, there are many, many, families that would say, or teach, don't be too high on yourself. Be humble. Which is fine, humility is good. humility and pride. Humility and self-value. mean, it's, to me, they can go hand in hand. You’re the middle path perfectly. Like, let's embrace all of these aspects of ourselves.
Hunter:
Well, this is fascinating, Margaret. I really appreciate it. And your book, of course, again, is “Perfectly Hidden Depression”- it's available anywhere books are sold. For someone who might be listening right now and identifies with what you're describing, but doesn't know where to start, what's one thing they could do today to begin making some kind of change?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford:
Well, I mean, they could order my book, they also asked if one, snap two is, or just listen to my podcast, that's free. Cause I talk about it a lot. But you're saying, like educate yourself. Understand this. Have some self understanding, yes. But there's actually another step that I think scares people: pick one friend that you have already that you have seen, keeps confidences that you trust, and have a cup of coffee with them and just look at them and say, realize I heard this lady talk about this kind of depression and I realize that I don't talk about myself. And they'll look at you go, no, you don't very much. And you could say, well, I'm going to try to change that. Well, good. That's all you have to say. You don't have to then share. You just say, I know that I never talk about what I struggle with and I'm going to try to change that. Boom. That's all you need to do.
Hunter:
I love that as a baby step, think that's big enough to be scary for lot of people, but small enough that it's doable. I hope if you're listening to this and you identify with what Margaret's talking about, then it's doable for you. This has been such a pleasure. Really appreciate you coming on the Mindful Mama podcast and talking and sharing your expertise and your wisdom with us. I think it's so helpful for people to maybe identify and understand this.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford:
I appreciate you saying it's my wisdom, it's really, know, Hunter, I feel as if I've been a therapist for over 30 years and I feel like what I'm offering to people is what I've learned from the people that I have tried to help and are been in the room while they were doing their work. And I feel like I'm sort of a conduit between, you know, what somebody else has learned and what somebody else has been through, whether it's through you know, losing a child or getting a divorce or being raped or whatever, and how they managed to get through it. And these perfect-seeming people struggle with that horribly, you know, because their answer to any of that happening is you just get going again, you know, and so they don't ever do anything with those feelings. They don't tend to. So some of the work is about saying, know, what traumas have you had in your life? And healing and tending to those hurts and acknowledging them that they exist at all. imagine, yeah. Thank you for having me. I very much appreciate it.
Hunter (44:24)
What a powerful conversation to have. We never think of the super high achievers as struggling and there can be a freedom on the other side of recognizing this and looking at it and facing it and just taking steps to have compassion and understanding all of that. I think it's so important.
So if this episode was helpful for you, I would love to know. you can tag me in social media @MindfulMamaMentor. Definitely tag me cause I-so actually what happened is, I had been really feeling the effects of the phone in the first couple months of this year. And I just had been noticing I'm like reaching for it and all these different moments and feeling kind of fragmented, feeling distracted and just not liking how I was feeling. And I was talking about it with my daughter, Maggie, and my husband. And we were considering getting a low tech phone and all these different things. So then Maggie took my phone and she actually took off tons and tons of apps, but including significantly the New York Times, Instagram and Facebook off my phone. So I don't do any Instagram stories anymore. If you're an Instagram person, you may have noticed that. And because I can't do it on test, but I'm just sharing some things I can on desktop, but it's really limited. And you know what? I feel a lot better feeling good about that. So do tag me if you have some thoughts and maybe if this episode's helped, it might take me a day or two to respond because it's not on my phone anymore. And I think that's good. I think that's good for me.
Anywho, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being here part of the Mindful Mama podcast community. We have swag now! We have really cozy hoodies, have a really great Mindful Mama Podcast baseball cap. It's actually like one of my favorite baseball caps as far as the way like it fits. You know, they all look the same, but they feel differently. And this one looks good on my head. So I recommend it. I like it. and that's all at MindfulMamaMentor.com. That would be amazing if you want to wear some Mindful Mama Podcast stuff. They're really comfy and great, but you know, you do you and you have a great week and thank you.
Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being here. And if you feel moved to support the show in any way you can by sharing it, say it's funny because the Mindful Mama Podcast, we've been around for 10 years. We're pretty successful as podcasts go, but there's a huge difference between us and like the podcasts you hear about. And so we definitely need your support to keep going. And so that could look like leaving a review or sharing it with your friends and just getting the word out. We got to share it with the parents to help to share this information as our kids get a little older, we need the parents of the younger kids, right? So if you know any those parents, share the podcast.
Thank you for being here. I hope you have a lovely week. Take care. Namaste.
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