Mara Glatzel, MSW (she/her) is an author, intuitive coach, and podcast host who helps humans stop abandoning themselves and start reclaiming their humanity through embracing their needs and honoring their natural energy rhythms. Her superpower is saying what you need to hear when you need to hear it and she is here to help you believe in yourself as much as she believes in you. Find out more at MaraGlatzel.com
407: What Are the Signs of Mom Burnout?
Mara Glatzel
What do you need right now? Can you even answer that question? Many parents—moms especially—aren’t comfortable asking for our needs when our children have so many. There’s a real sense of scarcity of time and energy for meeting our needs and this can lead to BURNOUT. I talk to Mara Glatzel, author of Needy, about the signs of burnout and how to avoid it.
What Are the Signs of Burnout? - Mara Glatzel [407]
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*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Mara Glatzel: It's something that we're so well conditioned into that sacrificial mother that's what it means to do a good job. That's what it means to love your kids, and of course you wanna do a good job and you wanna love your kids, and we're not told that we have needs and that our needs really do matter.
[00:00:26] Hunter: You are listening to the Mindful Mama Podcast, episode number 407. Today we're talking about what are the signs of Mom burnout with Mara Glaze.
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 Clark 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 20 years. I'm the creator of Mindful Parenting, and I'm the author of the bestselling book, raising Good Humans, A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting, and Raising Kind Confident Kids.
Welcome back to the Mindful Mama podcast, my friend. So glad you're here. I'm so glad to be here with you too. I am so honored to be here, to be able to learn and converse and be part of this conversation. It's such an honor. Hey, listen, if you haven't done so yet, please subscribe. Leave us a rating and review also on Apple Podcasts.
You can do it right where you're listening to this podcast on your phone, and it makes such a huge difference to me and to my team, and everyone just helps the podcast grow more and I really appreciate it. Today I'm going to be talking to Mara Glaze. She's an author, an intuitive coach, and a podcast host who helps humans stop abandoning themselves and start reclaiming their humanity through embracing their needs and honoring their natural energy rhythms.
And her superpower is saying what you need to hear, when you need to hear it. And she is here to help you believe in yourself as much as she believes in you. We're going to talk about how to get your needs met. What do you need right now? Can we even answer that question? And for many of us, especially moms, we aren't comfortable asking for our needs when our children have so many needs, right?
There's this real sense of scarcity of time and energy for meeting our needs, and this can lead to burnout, right? So Mara is the author of Needy, and we're gonna talk about the signs of burnout and how to avoid it. This is such a much needed conversation. I hope you'll join me at the table as I talk to Mazel.
Mara, thank you so much for coming on the Mindful Mama podcast.
[00:02:58] Mara Glatzel: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
[00:03:01] Hunter: I am so excited to be here too, and I'm so excited to talk about mom's needs and burnout and things like that because I just wanna share with you my own experience with this, because it was so on the forefront of everything that I experienced with my kids, and that I just realized there was, yeah, I don't know whether it was my mom who like took herself on horseback riding lessons when I was a kid or what it was, but I knew so instinctively like that.
I need to exercise. I need to sleep. I was like a raging, like a Jurassic Park. Dinosaur when I didn't sleep enough and I, I need to have time to, at that time was painting. I need to have time to have expression and I couldn't understand how people were like continuing to function with the amounts of like sleep or lack of doing anything from themselves that I could observe from the outside.
And this is a pretty big problem, isn't it? Yeah, it's a huge problem
[00:04:02] Mara Glatzel: and. It's something that we're so well conditioned into that sacrificial mother, that's what it means to do a good job. That's what it means to love your kids, and of course you wanna do a good job and you wanna love your kids and that we're not told as often.
Although I think, the conversation is increasingly common, which is wonderful. That we have needs and that our needs really do matter. And for me, I was lucky to have to have experienced pretty significant burnout prior to having kids. And so when I saw the warning signs for myself, I was aware of what was happening for me and also where that was gonna go in that it was just gonna get worse and worse and worse and worse if I didn't prioritize my own care.
And I think it's, it is absolutely essential that mothers are told over and over again that they matter because we're not, we couldn't possibly be told that
[00:05:03] Hunter: enough. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, we can see the. Effects of that in a lot of people. I think I thought of that, sometimes I use like my mother-in-law as an example of that, like she was super self-sacrificing when my husband were and his sister were young and did everything, didn't work and did all these things for them.
And I, according to him, she got a little Frustrated and overwhelmed and everything with that by the time they were teenagers. And then by the time I had kids, we lived much closer to his parents than my parents were up in new England. There wasn't just like a lot of energy for grandkids, it was just like that wasn't there. It was like I was, and for me, I see that as clearly a symptom of burnout that happens. Let's just take a moment because for you, I wanna hear about your story about burnout, and I wanna go back. So thinking about you and your childhood, how were you raised and were was, were you given, what was the example that you were given for how a mom should be a mom?
[00:06:08] Mara Glatzel: Yeah, so my mother both of my parents really had a very active relationship with one another. They weren't together for that much of my life, but for the first couple years they really and continued after as co-parents where they both took a lot of responsibility for Parenting us and being present in our lives.
And when I was really little, my dad traveled a ton, so I saw my mom doing everything. For us all of the time. But she had help to the extent that, we were able to have help in our family. And then when my parents got divorced, my father was here more full-time. And they were bouncing back and forth in terms of who was Parenting us.
But what I did see over and over again was how. Confident my mom was in my dad's ability to take care of us. Even when we were really small, she would do the things that she needed to do either for work or, for her friendships or, just for her own personal needs. And would leave us with him without, doing a bunch of emotional labor.
Like she didn't really set anything up. She didn't, I don't know these things. People do cook dinner in advance or write little notes. This is what you're supposed to do. All of that kind of, she didn't do any of that because from her perspective, he's a absolutely capable individual. He knows us well and he's gonna figure it out and it's gonna be fine.
And so I will say that, that example has been so helpful for me now with kids. That I can take that space for myself. I don't feel, sometimes I feel guilty about doing that because I miss my kids or whatever. But I don't feel guilty about my partner, Parenting. They are perfectly well equipped to parent.
I don't feel the inclination to micromanage how that happens when I'm not there, which I think can be such a drain on so many of us to. Want it to also be this certain way. I have expectations that when I come home, it's not like a hot mess that I have to clean up. And I think that those kinds of examples are really powerful.
When we see both of our parents, Participating, both of our parents, like that expectation of we're both adults and we can figure it out and we have different strengths certainly, it is what it is and it's gonna be great and it's gonna be fine. That has been such a gift to me in my Parenting, certainly.
And for me personally. The trick has been that in much of my childhood, both of my parents are much more like they don't need routines the same way that I do. And, kids need routines. Certainly I needed routines more as a child, that would've benefited me, but I still need that as an adult.
And Something that I was able to see from my childhood that ended up ultimately really healing me from my burnout and I carry that through into my Parenting, is that I do things in a really structured way. We go to sleep at the same time every day. We eat all of our meals in the same time and in the same way, there's this expectation of this is when things are going to happen.
And sure I'm sure that helps my kids, but that helps me, that helps the inner kid inside of me to be more emotionally regulated, to be more present to what is going. To happen over the course of the day. And that's not something that my parents were big on. That wasn't something that either of them really need.
They both travel a lot. I'm more of a homebody. We're just different in that way. And so I learned that lesson too. It's oh, you know what I personally needed was to know at six o'clock every night. We're gonna eat dinner and it's gonna be in this kind of way. I just have that kind of personhood, and so now as an adult, I create that for myself and I create that for my kids and it's useful.
It has been a useful tether for me in the Parenting journey too, to know this is when bedtime's gonna happen. This is what it's gonna look like. It's gonna be the same way every day. I find that soothing, and that's helped me to be a better parent as well.
[00:10:31] Hunter: I could see how that would be really soothing because I, my husband and my oldest daughter are very much like that, that they need, they're children of routine and I'm super not I'm like your parents.
Like I need, like things that are, I need variety and I love to travel and stuff like that. And it's so fascinating though because I. I could see it in my children, like how they just thrived off everything that was regular and predictable, especially when they were little. Of course, like this, like we do this on this day.
Like we had a, we had a meal rhythm plan. It wasn't like a plan, but it was like a rhythm where it was like, Monday was rice night and Tuesday was soup, and Wednesday was pasta, and Friday was pizza. Something like that. So we had this like sort of predictable thing and they'd be like, what night is it?
And they'd mean is it noodle night? Basically it's always, was it noodle night? And but that was super anchoring for them, right? They knew the sort of rhythm of the week, the rhythm of their days and things like that. And yeah, I think that piece is incredibly. Incredibly valuable. And that's great that you had that example.
I think my mom went out and like my dad would make us popcorn to juice for dinner, but just that was like a pretty typical dinner with dad when mom was working
[00:11:48] Mara Glatzel: at night. Sometimes it was the same. I have this memory when we were, my dad built all of the original Urban Outfitters across the country, so when we were little, we would travel.
To see him sometimes and we would stay with him wherever he was on site, which was always like, this like rented condo or something where he was living while it was being built. And I have memories of eating, pizza Doritos for breakfast and I remember it fondly. It was an anomaly. And I think that helps too.
It's like it's, that was fine. It was fine, whatever it was. And it helps me to be less vigilant like that. The holder of all of the things that even when I'm not present, I'm also, setting the tone or dictating whatever it is. My partner is a professional chef, so this is not an apt exact equation for our relationship because they make amazing food all the time.
Whether or not the kids will eat it is another thing. But But yeah, I just think, part of what is so heavy in that burnout is I have to have everything go exactly this way and there's not room for, I. Stepping away and taking a breath or getting a break or having time to really be unplugged or disconnected, even if it's just for half an hour from what is happening in your home.
Cuz that's, it's heavy. There's so much emotional labor that's woven into that is so heavy to carry.
[00:13:33] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcast right after this break.
I think especially when our children, you told me earlier that you have a three year old and a six year old. When our children are young, they don't retreat to their room for an hour and a half at a time. Like my 13 year old and 16 year old do you
[00:13:54] Mara Glatzel: know? Never seen it. Never seen that.
[00:13:57] Hunter: No, it will happen. It will happen. Trust me. Mara, so tell me, you wrote about, and you've talked about your burnout. Can you tell us the story of what
[00:14:04] Mara Glatzel: happened? Yeah, so the first time that I was significantly burnt out, I was in grad school, my second year of grad school, getting my master's in social work and.
It became clear to me at that point what a toll my perfectionism was taking on me. And I had always been a high achiever. I had always been somebody who was highly invested in doing everything right. I. A lot of my felt experience of safety came from micromanaging people's perceptions of me, which I was pouring a lot of energy into, and I didn't really realize it because I didn't know that people lived any other way.
I wasn't conscious of it, and until things came crashing down where I had too much on my plate, I had too much to manage. Things were just leaking around the edges and I couldn't contain it the way that I had before. And I was exhausted and I was drinking tons of coffee to keep myself awake.
I would come home, I would fall asleep, like eating dinner, sitting on the couch, watching tv, whatever it was I was doing, I was, had no energy for my partner whatsoever. And it became clear that I was far more familiar with who I believed I was expected to be than who I actually was. That actually my whole life to that point was constructed so that it looked good, it looked the right way.
I was doing kind of the quote unquote right things. But it didn't feel good. It didn't look like. I don't think I would've known at this point in my life what like me even looks like because I didn't know myself. I was so intimately connected with striving to be better and striving to perform, and striving to be enough and.
I really had to slow down. I had the enough of an understanding that this wasn't what it was supposed to be like, and also that it wasn't sustainable for me and that things were going to only degrade worse from there. But it took a while to reconnect with myself and to rebuild, or to really just get to know myself, what do I wanna do?
Turned out I didn't wanna be a social worker, which was, Here. I didn't wanna work for somebody else. I had already spent a cool hundred thousand dollars on that education. There was a cost to this self-knowledge, but I had this very just visceral understanding of nobody in my life even knows me.
I have, I am presenting who I think they want me to be on so many fronts, being a good daughter, being a good partner. We are, my partner and I were just about to get married at this point and I hadn't really let them know me totally. And so at that moment, I had to start somewhere. And what became so clear was I was not permitting myself to take up space in my life anywhere.
It was all about what I was doing and doing for other people and how well I was doing it, and how I was performing. And when I started to do things like brush my teeth in the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror without, brushing my teeth while on my phone, while looking at my calendar, while doing all of these things, I felt so uncomfortable.
I felt so uncomfortable resting or slowing down. It felt like I wanted to stop and start and pick everything else up and keep running with it. And I started to work with people around self-care a couple years after that, growing out of that own my own experience and also my professional training in supporting people in that way.
But until I had my children, I wasn't focusing on needs in particular, after I had my kids, I really, I remember looking at my daughter in the hospital and I had been in labor for 60 hours and I was so tired and I was supposed to be her mom, I was supposed to like, know what to do and I was struck by how I was having my own experience.
She was needing something from me. I was needing something from myself and I didn't feel equipped to be a parent really. And just how much gets lost, right? You're a kid and you're asking for what you need and your parents are having their own experience or they're stressed about money or they're trying to figure it out, or just how much.
Gets transmitted and how often people I work with, the reason they don't ask for what they need goes back to childhood. Not because by and large they were neglected or mistreated by their parents mostly. There's just this disconnect, right? I needed this thing and they weren't available for it. At the time, they seemed stressed.
I stopped asking cuz I wanted to be helpful and so much is happening. That is. Misunderstood and then we become these adults and we don't know how to ask for what we need. We don't even know what we're allowed to need to begin with. Yeah,
[00:19:47] Hunter: yeah. These are like these small T traumas. I'm reading Gabor Mate's book, the Myth of Normal right now.
When he talks about that, like these small T traumas where, you know, just in a normal upbringing, like there are needs that get missed, you just You're not seen, you're not heard. In much of different ways. And it's not that we're wanting or expecting anybody as parents to be perfect and to be always attentive to every single thing, cuz dear listener, like that's not good for your kids either.
But yeah, this is just, this is that, that part of life. And it often, maybe with our generation too, we had a lot of I know I was like a latchkey kid and just no one was around. People had their own stuff going on and. There's gotta, I guess there's like a middle path ultimately that we're going for here.
But yeah, this idea that we're, and this is common, right? We're not seeing our needs and especially I think postpartum, like that moment, our culture is so bad at recognizing that, oh my God, this woman. This mother is born. Like I, I love the way my friend Kimberly Johnson talks about this idea of a mares, right?
A birth of a mother, and you are born and you are forgotten. You have a booboo inside your body the size of a dinner plate, and you are just like forgotten. It's all about the baby. And really like the way we have things set up with just. It's just like without this like huge gathering of support around mothers it's, our needs are forgotten there.
So that was a waking up moment for you it sounds yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:25] Mara Glatzel: What became clear was up until that point, I had enough corners of my life to make it okay. And, I never had to ask anybody for anything directly. I was able to make it work, but once I had my oldest daughter, I couldn't, I had.
Nothing left to make it work. I felt like this pot boiling over and I could not help myself. I was so tired. I was saying things I was, couldn't even believe were coming outta my mouth and felt. I am lucky to have a partner who asks me what I need fairly often, and I felt like I, I didn't even know.
What I was allowed to need. I didn't even know it was on the table. That question wasn't particularly useful. It's great that it was asked, that's not the case for all of us, but I didn't really know what to do with it. What can I'm. At this point, brand new to asking for and receiving support from other people in a very real way.
So I don't know how to do that. That doesn't feel particularly safe for me, and I had to learn that from the ground up. And. As I was learning it, realizing just how many gaps there are in the conversation. Just the actual vocabulary for what is a need, what am I allowed to need, and what is it okay to ask?
How do I ask? And these are real questions and skills that we need in order to have the confidence to have these conversations, especially if. Say, you're in a relationship with somebody who may not be as invested in giving you what you need. You feel like I have to have a really good reason for asking for the things that I'm asking for.
I really wanna feel confident in knowing how to ask. I think by and large when we're talking to parents of young children, there is that visceral felt sense of there's one scrap of. Resources, time, energy, money to go around and there's this kind of mad dash for it because we're definitely not both getting what we need and there's none.
The scarcity is real. The scarcity is real. And if we don't know how to communicate what we need, how are we supposed to figure it out together? And you see so many couples of, or co-parents of young kids really struggling in their relationship with one another, and this communication is a huge part of that.
So do
[00:24:05] Hunter: you feel like we should be looking at these needs? Are there questions we should be asking each other before we even have kids? Like ideally are there things that we should be saying, conversations we should be having? Before then, because I think a lot of what happens particularly like with men and women who get married, like women, fall into those traditional gender roles because oftentimes those questions or the conversations aren't even had of who does the laundry or whatever it is.
You know what I mean? Who or it might even be something that's even more subtle, the mom ends up taking care of all the administrative things for the child, like the, all the doctor's appointments, the school, talking to the school, talking to the nurses, talking to all the, setting up, the sports team, all that stuff.
And that's not fair either, right? But we, if we don't have these conversations, That's what happens. Like I, I remember distinctly having a conversation with my husband saying, you need to take care of more of the signing up for stuff. I'm done. I need you to take half of that stuff cuz this is annoying and relentless work to do this kind of thing.
So anyway. So are these conversations we should be having
[00:25:20] Mara Glatzel: before we have kids? Yeah. I think that the more that we can work on our communication before we have kids. Or insert any stressful situation. Talking about how we talk to one another when things are challenging is a really important relational skill and having practices in place.
You'll see people who have a weekly check-in or a check-in once a day. Something like that will where they'll divvy things up. I love Eve Brodsky's the Fair Play Method, and I think that is, should be done by all couples. What is it? It's a method for dividing up labor in a relationship and really it's like having all of the parts of it on the table and.
She has this concept of, the magic card. It's if you're holding the card for. I don't know. Say the birthday party, right? You're ordering the stuff on Amazon ahead of time. You're setting the invitation, you're talking to people, you're doing, you are doing all of the parts of that task.
Because otherwise what happens is, default, the parent who does the emotional labor is doing some of the things of everything. So you're never just off the hook, right? You're. Maybe your partner is doing the signing the kids up for camp, but there's like an email in your inbox that you have to sign up, sign off on before they can do that.
It's like that you hold a part in so many different things and before I knew about the Fair Play Method, they have a deck and like fun ways that you could play with it. There's a documentary that's really useful. But before I knew about that, I had created something that my partner and I used where I wrote down on a piece of paper.
Basically, here's all of the things that need to be done in a week, right? The lunches that need to be made kid, kid A needs to be driven here. Kid B needs to be driven here, picked up thing, bills. Grossly everything that I could possibly think of. And we would sit down and take a highlighter and each of us highlight the things that we were gonna be responsible for that week.
And I think even just having a working understanding of what is there, because. Otherwise it was like I was the only one who knew whether or not we had pull-ups and when, where we got the pull-up, like where did the pull-ups come from and how did they arrive? And all of these small things. And so when we were able to be more explicit about it, What you're also doing is saying, I don't really wanna do this week, but I'm happy to do these other things and do you wanna do these things?
And really just not taking those ingrained roles for granted. And of course all of our lives look different and if different configurations of working from home, working out of home, working or not working, all of that, but having it be a conversation. That you are having on an off occurring basis, I think can really help in helping you be present too.
Hey, this week looks different for whatever reason. We have, five doctor's appointments for some reason and we, Having it be present to what is going on in our household this week and really honoring like we're both here and we're both responsible for this. And for the person in the house who is carrying the most emotional labor, which by and large is the mother it is so important to.
Really begin to understand and value the amount of energy that is requiring of you all of the time. Cuz I think I. What happens so often is we devalue that and we think I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why I am so tired. I know why I'm so tired. It's because I'm the only person who knows where the secret pull-ups come from.
And also what clothes is in what season, and what thing is in what bag, and where that tiny Calico critter is underneath the couch and to the corner. And all of that information is in my head all of the time. And so the more that we can honor. I'm putting a lot of energy out and what am I giving back to myself?
Am I giving things back to myself? Because if I'm not, everything that I'm pouring my energy into is unstable. It's unsustainable. And. For me it is so vital to understand that I care about my kids so much, and if I care about my kids, I have to care about myself, because if I don't do that, I have nothing to give them, and that's what I really don't want.
And I also don't wanna show my daughters that I'm have some sort of like magical energy shelf that, that doesn't exist. That I can just keep going, because then I'm teaching them. That's what it means to be a good mom.
[00:30:32] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. Then you're modeling that. I love that.
I couldn't agree more. I like to say that self-care is not selfish. It's actually our responsibility, right? That's, that, that's where it comes down for me. I think that's so beautiful. We need to be honoring those. That labor that is an ex extraordinary amount of labor.
And then they talk about like the mental labor that we do. It's like something that burns like an immense amount of calories. In fact, that's why chess players apparently are often so skinny is that they just are burning mental L calories constantly, but. I wanted to just go back to what you said.
I love that like weekly check-in that reminds me of like how we talk about chores in our house, like laying it all out with the whole family and this is what are all the things that need to happen and who can take what, right? And so that idea that people have buy-in and understanding about what here are all the things, rather than just going to get the to-do list what you're saying.
Is like this requires a step back. This is, this requires that we value time to, to take a step back to, to look at the, these things and to value all this work that is happening.
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcast right after this break.
So let's imagine the parent that's, that is not doing that, right? It's like doing all the things is not taking that time for themselves. What are those, what are the signs of burnout that that we should be watching out for?
[00:32:10] Mara Glatzel: Emotional fragility or irritability, that like emotional range, you're going from, zero to 900 in one second.
Rage. Rage. I find that many of my clients are beating themselves up for their anger and not, and misreading their anger as a sign of burnout. Thinking oh, I'm just this horrible, angry. Mother and you're not a horrible, angry mother. Rage is a symptom of burnout as is sensitivity.
And how could you not be sensitive to all of the st, the stimu that's happening in your house, the input my dog just suddenly started whining in the same pitch that both of my kids whine, and it is. It is enough to bring me to my knees in about two seconds. So that kind of sensitivity also yeah, I think, our emotional re our emotional regulation, or lack thereof, is a really big sign that presents itself in the Parenting relationship and needing.
Your kids to do things in just this right way. Being, feeling really controlling about that is so often there's this part of you that's just desperate to have it be like that because you see any semblance of your own peace or your own care on the other side of that bedtime. But this can also happen with procrastination.
That feeling of I have so much to do, I can't get anything done. It could be exhaustion, it could be you're hyper wired and you can't sleep. Burnout manifests in so many ways, but what is really important, and what I hope all of you take away from this conversation is that those symptoms of burnout are just that symptoms of burnout.
Too often we experience them as weaknesses or moral failings or character flaws. And we regard their presence as evidence that we need to work harder, which only burns us out more and makes those symptoms act up even more. And if instead we can see, hey, these things start to happen.
It's It happens on a spectrum. I start to feel more uncomfortable, like more sensitive about the fabrics on my body. Then I start to feel really agitated by my kids' voices. Not even whining, just when they're just talking all day long. Then I start to feel. A lot of internal pressure around getting ready for school in the morning, getting them out the door, and also getting them ready for bed and getting them in bed.
Those times where it's like there is a time where they're gonna be asleep or at school, and I just have to get them to that urgency. All of those are examples of burnout for me. And I put them on the spectrum of these are the lightest, now we're getting more the urgency feeling. Now we're getting closer.
Me getting really angry at my kids for just being the children that they are now we're getting closer, right to this cliff of burnout. And when we start to see our symptoms in that way as on this spectrum, then we can notice, oh hey. Sensitive to noises, feeling touched out, feeling like the fabrics just don't work right on my body.
This is a moment when my body is saying to me I need something. I don't have to wait until my body's yelling, and in fact, better if I don't, I can pause right here and say, could I use. An hour alone by myself. Honestly, it's like sometimes even just going to the grocery store, you're doing a thing for the family, but I'm by myself.
I have my own bodily autonomy. I'm listening to a podcast, maybe I'm gonna get a cup of coffee. Something like that. That's not this huge vacation from your life, but a marketed container where you're taking your knees into consideration and you're also saying to yourself, I hear you. You're overwhelmed and there's nothing wrong with that, right?
It's relatively neutral. You have a lot on your plate, and if I can take the time to turn towards myself in this moment, I don't have to get to the point where I'm, threatening my kids that I'm gonna throw off their toys in a trash bag and leave them out on the curb, or something horrible that I don't wanna do.
I can care for myself in this moment before things escalate to this point of extreme exhaustion getting sick. Blowing up, picking a huge fight with my spouse. All of these ways that we're trying to say to ourselves hey, I need help. Can you pay attention to me? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:37:13] Hunter: And your nervous system is just the, it takes just this tiny little bit at that point to push your nervous system over into losing that.
That strikes such a chord with me because I, so I coach people in the Mindful Parenting membership, and they oftentimes, I get. Parents who are like, they're experiencing those things. They're experiencing sensitivity, lack of emotional regulation, wanting to control their kids. They're seeing it as, there's something wrong with me.
I need to work harder. There's something more. And I see that a lot. And I say, okay, we can talk about how to talk to your kids, but that's gonna be useless. It's gotta be useless right now until we talk about what kind of support is in your life. Like where can you take a break in your life?
Like how can you by hook or by crook, find some ways can we brainstorm 10 different ways for you to get. Half an hour a day to yourself multiple times a week. Because anything we say, we talk, we about with communication or how to stop yelling and all of those things are gonna be useless if you were so burnt out that you, there's nothing to add onto there.
And so it often, I think it, sometimes it really takes somebody else seeing you and saying, oh, this is what's happening. And hopefully maybe this conversation. Can be that week up call for some of us right. To say, oh, that might be me. That could be me. Maybe I should have my partner listen to this conversation.
Cuz that kind of sounds like me. To even see it cuz we're so locked in that way of I don't dunno that self-blame. I think that's really pervasive.
[00:38:53] Mara Glatzel: Yeah. And I wanna be so kind and compassionate here because. Many times, a cornerstone of late stage burnout is a self-protective feature of not wanting people to see you as you know yourself to be, which is, rapidly falling apart.
And. How threatening it can feel to have somebody say to you, Hey, I think that you could use some help, or you're, needing more support than you have right now. And, I can remember for myself when I was really struggling with postpartum mood issues, it was a similar kind of thing where my partner said, Very gently, I think there's something bigger going on with you here and that felt very scary and very dangerous to have that be seen.
And if you are hearing yourself and some of what we're talking about, I really wanna say to you that, there's nothing. Bad about being burnt out. There's, it's not a personal thing that if you were better or you were stronger, that you wouldn't have gotten burnt out. I really think about burnout as system overwhelm and how could we not be overwhelmed Parenting children in 2023.
There is so much to contend with. There are so many decisions to make every day, so much to consider, and so as much compassion as you can have for yourself as possible is so essential because it's important that we have spaces where we know that. It's okay to be burnt out. Many of us are. Even if you work on your burnout and you heal it to the point where you're no longer burnt out, you may someday find yourself burnt out again.
That happens, and what's more important is to have this relationship with yourself where you're starting notice to notice, Hey, I find I'm finding myself, sliding down this spectrum. I'm noticing I'm more reactive to my kids. I'm wanting to pick a fight with my spouse. These things are happening.
I. This is a symptom and not something that's bad or wrong about me. And also that there are things that I can do. There is support that I can seek, and starting to prioritize my own care as if it's essential and it is will help me with the burnout that I'm having. It's not, this kind of be all, end all thing.
Because I think one of the trickiest parts about burnout is, when you get into those later stages of it, you start to, you're, you start to wonder if maybe you're even worth the time or the space in your own life that you so vitally need. Because all you do is see yourself messing up in all of these different kinds of ways.
And this is why it's so important that we talk about it because, we don't. Innately understand that these circumstances happen. I know for myself, if I'm in late stage burnout, I am, my, my negative body talk is off the charts. My self-loathing is off the charts. My self-doubt is super present and inside of my mind is not a kind place.
And so what I'm needing in that moment is to be met with compassion and comradery and to be rerouted back to my bed. But that's not what I'm experiencing inside of myself and knowing that is the case. Helps so much. Cause you're like, oh, hey, I've been really mean to myself all day. And I know what that is.
That is what happens when I am not prioritizing my needs, when I'm not taking care of myself or asking for support with what I need. It's neutral in that way, and I think that is so powerful to really take home. Yeah.
[00:43:00] Hunter: I couldn't agree with you anymore and I'm, it brings up for me like so much.
Compassion for all that suffering like that we go through, and it's that we shouldn't have to go through, just, and it just seems so like inevitable in a lot of ways, like in the way that our just. Hugely social species with humans that have baby humans that are so immature and have so many needs and that we're so isolated.
And it's just I'm so frustrated with the lack of so support that parents have at least in the United States for this and that, if you are experiencing that, like this is. In many ways, like an inevitable result of the way things are set up, like way beyond you as an individual.
So knowing that there are factors way beyond us as individuals that are adding to this, that are lending themselves, that are making this more likely. What are some of the ways that we can advocate for our needs? How we can balance our needs with the needs of our family? Because like we think about an infant, right?
And infant's needs are immediate and they have to be met, right? But like that mom still needs are still there. They're not just gonna go away, but they can be delayed. It's just so how can we advocate and balance. Our
[00:44:20] Mara Glatzel: needs. So I think what is most important, and especially you know, the younger that your kids are, but this is important always is thinking about what your non-negotiable needs are.
Because she absolutely your're an adult. Your needs can be delayed, but because your needs can be delayed, it can sometimes feel like, oh, I can delay them inevitably, and. I urge people not to think about it in that way, but instead to think about, what do I need over the course of a given day?
What do I need in order to feel like the most kind of human, whole version of myself that I'm feeling? I feel like I matter to somebody, right? That I matter to myself, and. I have, I talk to people, people have all different answers to this question. For some people, they want their bed to be made.
For somebody else, it might be that the laundry's done, so you always have clean underwear. For somebody else, it might be that food is batch cooked so that there's always something to eat. For me personally, this number one thing, even when my children were tiny, was to at some point during the day But definitely preference for first thing in the morning to brush my teeth and wash my face.
And even if I'm just putting on, another kind of sweatsuit situation that I have this moment where I'm just having a refresh that was so important for my mental health, especially during those unending days that were just cycling one into another. And Asking the people who are around you, Hey, can I have, this is what I need is 10 minutes, 20 minutes to take a shower?
To just be my own person and check in with myself to feed myself breakfast, whatever those things. Are to go for a walk
[00:46:28] Hunter: by yourself. Yeah.
[00:46:29] Mara Glatzel: But to have a thing where you're like, at least even though things are tumultuous during this time, I can count on this thing, whatever it is. Because that kind of understanding of this is the thing I'm gonna get no matter what.
Now if I have more of an opportunity on that day, I can have more. Sure. You have as much as you want. That's great. Endless care opportunities. But to know what you can count on, because I think one of the most crushing feelings of parenthood, especially early parenthood, is I am drowning and I don't know when I can expect.
To get anything that I need. And so if you have this understanding of okay, at least like at this time this is gonna be it. It might not be enough, but this is the other piece. Something is always better than nothing. You may ache for the whole enchilada of like of self-care experiences and who would blame you.
But something is better than nothing. And noticing, Hey, okay. Actually when I make an effort to eat at regular intervals, other things start to get easier. Or when I make an effort to go to sleep at a certain time every night, everything else is easier. We all have these linchpins that support us in bigger ways, and when we can start to identify what those things are for ourselves, we can have this feeling of, okay, if I only do one thing and that one thing is getting to bed at 10 o'clock at night, that helps.
It doesn't fix everything, but it gives me the best possible chance. For me, I wanna get up and I wanna, do like my whole little routine and get to change my outfit and, pull myself together. That really helps. The second thing that really helps is eating three meals a day at regular intervals.
Having stable blood sugar enables me infinite patients when it comes to my children that I wouldn't have otherwise if I was just, taking. It is so easy when you're Parenting young kids to see your own hunger as an afterthought because you are feeding people all the time and feeding yourself feels like way too much.
But when you notice the impact of that kind of care and neither of these things are reinventing the wheel or doing something super special, but it's giving yourself a little bit of what you're giving to everyone around you all day long.
[00:49:06] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I think mine was.
Getting some exercise I needed to get my energy out, get my yaya's out. I used to take my baby to the Y M C A childcare, and boy, she didn't like it at first, but we persisted. We persisted until she became comfortable with that. And it was a linchpin in my sanity for sure. This is so wonderful, so valuable.
It's such a needed, pun intended conversation. And I think that for for people who are experiencing this kind of thing, it's like a real, like hopefully a sense of oh yeah. I needed to hear that probably. Mara, thank you so much. Mara's book is needy. Where can people find out more about you and continue the conversation?
[00:49:58] Mara Glatzel: Yeah, come hang out with me@mazel.com. You can find out about the book about my work. Can take a quiz. What do you need right now? I have created a lot of really awesome resources for you to meet yourself in this exact moment. And you can also find me on Instagram at mazel. I love to hang out over there, so come find me, say hello and I'd love to continue the conversation there.
[00:50:23] Hunter: Thank you so much. Thank you for being so open and honoring of this really important conversation and what you saw in yourself and what in other people's. I think in other people, I think it's just incredibly valuable. And in moms particularly need to be honored, what, and seen in this way.
So thank you for doing that.
[00:50:46] Mara Glatzel: Oh, thank you so much for having me. This was great. I really enjoyed it.
[00:50:57] Hunter: Hey, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. Like I said, I'm honored that I can do this work, that I can have these conversations with so many people and be part of this. Conversation. It is so valuable and these tools have helped me so much. They've helped the Mindful Parenting members so much and I hope they're helping you.
I really do. Cause this is hard. It's hard, right? So let's support each other on this journey. Hey, if you like this episode, please subscribe of course, and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts where you can do it right from where you're listening. It just makes a huge difference in helping the podcast grow more.
I really appreciate it and I wanna give a shout out to Mending Trauma. Thank you so much for your five star review. They say packed with value. I've found so much value in Mindful Mama through hunter's interviews and authenticity about mom life. Raising my five children, three who are differently abled is challenging and learning mindfulness completely changed my motherhood game.
Thank you, hunter, for such valuable content. Oh, that is awesome. I hope this work that we do here has helped you just as much. And please let me know if it has go to share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in it, Mindful Mama mentor, and I would love to hear what your feedback is, and I hope you'll share this with the other people who need this message around you.
Because we, so many of us need to remember that our self-care is really the foundation. For Parenting more consciously and breaking generational patterns. It really is. So I hope you take good care of yourself this week, your listener. I'm so glad you're here. Can't wait to connect with you again next week.
Namaste.
I'd say
[00:52:53] Mara Glatzel: definitely do it. It's really
[00:52:54] Hunter: helpful. It will change your relationship with your kids for the better. It will help you communicate
[00:52:58] Mara Glatzel: better and just, I'd say communicate better as a person, as a wife, as a spouse, it's been really a positive influence in our lives. So definitely do it. I'd say definitely do it.
It's so worth it. The money really is inconsequential when you get so much benefit from being a better parent to your children and feeling like you're connecting more. With them and not feeling like you yelling all the time, or you're like, why isn't things working? I would say definitely enjoy it. It's so worth it.
It'll change you no matter what age someone's child is. It's a great opportunity for personal growth and it's great investment in someone's family. I'm very thankful I have this. You can continue in your old habits that aren't working, or you can learn some new tools and gain some perspective to shift.
Everything in your Parenting,
[00:53:56] Hunter: are you frustrated by Parenting? Do you listen to the experts and try all the tips and strategies, but you're just not seeing the results that you want? Or are you lost as to where to start? Does it all seem so overwhelming with too much to learn? Are you yearning for community people who get it, who also don't want to threaten and punish to create cooperation?
Hi, I'm Hunter Clarkfield, and if you answered yes to any of these questions, I want you to seriously consider the Mindful Parenting membership. You'll be joining hundreds of members who have discovered the path of Mindful Parenting and now have confidence and clarity in their Parenting. This isn't just another Parenting class.
This is an opportunity to really discover your unique lasting relationship, not only with your children, but with yourself. It will translate into lasting connected relationships, not only with your children, but your partner too. Let me change your life. Go to. Mindful Parenting course.com to add your name to the wait list, so you will be the first to be notified when I open the membership for enrollment.
I look forward to seeing you on the inside, Mindful Parenting course.com.
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