Episode 369: You Are Enough Today Just As You Are

No need to whine, it's whiny palooza. Have some wine and join us on the whiny palooza podcast with Rebecca Greene. Welcome to the whiny palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Greene. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family. Hello everyone, happy Whiny Palooza Wednesday!

Happy Whiny Palooza Wednesday!

Oops, this is hard, I can't see it. No need to whine. It's Winey Palooza Wednesday. Get some wine, get a drink, and join us and talk to us. And talk to us about the topic today. It's too long of a title though. You are enough today just as you are.

You could just say you are enough today.

I understand that. And it's working. Yes, we're live. It's working. We're early for the last time. Because we have to pick up Ella and her internship is ending this weekend and we will go back to our regularly scheduled 9 o'clock live on Wednesdays, but today we apologize for being early. Hopefully you find us and I was spiraling a bit this weekend and Monday morning and that is where this topic came from. This topic is all from me. The next topic is a topic request. This, this week was— it comes from me, and I know, and I want to tell all of you this, that if you are having an issue, if something is upsetting you, bothering you, you are never alone. And I promise you, there are other mothers, other people that are struggling with the same issues. So as I talked myself down, I decided to share and help others and help myself along the process. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about where my head was at, and then we're gonna talk about tips on how to help ourselves feel like enough.

Awesome.

So I get in this place, and I think I did a better job last summer than this summer. Last summer we had just gotten a pool, and I think I was in pool la-la land, and I was just like so happy to have a pool and so happy to just be in my backyard. And this year I'm going a little bit like backyard stir-crazy. Like, I love being in my backyard, but I need more action.

You, you, well, you've had some extenuating circumstances preventing you from some of the action.

Well, and I think that part of my frustration stems from the fact that I have been in my car so much this summer, more than I anticipated. I think I didn't anticipate it, and, um, there's been days like There's days that I wake up and I'm like, oh, you're gonna be in your car all day. So, ah, so I am so— so there are silver linings in there. I, I am so happy that my children are doing things that are in their interests and that they are not sitting home on their phones. And they all had doctor's appointments today, and the doctor was like, I am so glad you're keeping them busy. I'm glad to hear they're not sitting home on electronics. Like, they you're so happy to hear that. And I was like, yep. And she's like, I know you're in your car all day. Like, she understands, she has kids. So yes, I'm in my car all day, and yes, I'm not doing fun summer things. And I think that that led to why I was kind of spiraling last weekend, because, you know, this is about the time of the summer where I start to twitch because I know it's going to come to an end before I blink. And I really want to make sure that I get to do the summer things that I want to do.

This is when it's time to cram in all the possible summer fun we can.

And, and I, and I think that we're going to start with step 1. How can we feel like we're enough? And I'm going to tell you that step 1 is— hi, how are you? So step 1 is that when you are at the end of your day I don't want you to start thinking about the list of things that you did not do that day. That is one of the worst things that we can do to make ourselves go to bed feeling like crap. And like, if I went to bed going, oh my God, I drove my kids around all day, I didn't get anything done, I didn't get to do anything. If that's how I go to bed at night, I'm gonna feel like crap about myself, about my life, about my attitude. Instead, I want to switch the script and I want to switch to What did I do? What am I proud of? What, what was my— what was good about my day? Like, let's not think about what we didn't have. Let's not think about what we didn't do. You're always going to have a list, and I think that my list— I will make a list and I will then expect myself to do all 10 things that day. So we're gonna, we're gonna move to step 2, and step 2 is we have to have realistic expectations for ourselves. And there's a thing that's called unrelenting standards. You know this term.

I do.

I know this term, and I know that I can get trapped into that of having standards that are way too high for myself, and that's going to just set me up for failure and feeling like crap. So if I have realistic expectations of what my day is going to look like and what I'm going to do and what I'm going to accomplish and what I'm going to enjoy. If I can enjoy the journey, if I can, you know, give myself praise through the day, I'm going to feel a heck of a lot different than if I'm thinking about what I didn't do and if I'm thinking about very unrealistic expectations. So that is step 1 and step 2 to feeling like enough And I think that for me, the beginning of the day and the end of the day are most crucial, but we're gonna talk about during the day too. Like, you wanna set yourself up at the beginning of the day with realistic expectations for the day and with a positive attitude. If I go into my day thinking about, ugh, I'm gonna drive, I don't know, I'm making this up, 60 miles today, and I'm not happy about it.

Like, you're— the rest of your day is going downhill.

So the way that I start my day—

win your night.

Yes. And when I go to bed, I want to think about the positive things about my day and feel like good enough. Like, you're good enough, you did enough. And that brings me to— it is not about what we do. It is not— we are not worthy and enough because of what we do. We are worthy enough because of who we are as a person. And I'm measuring my worth based on my accomplishments in the day. Like, for example, you know, I got my blog and a podcast done, so I'm good enough today. No, you're good enough even if you don't accomplish that. So I think that I can get caught. I think I frequently get caught in the trap, and I'm reining myself in because I think I was doing a good job, and I think I'm like losing grip a little bit. So this is me reining myself in. I think I was doing better than I have done this week, and I think that I started to fall into the trap of what did I accomplish today to make myself worthy.

Ouch. About who you're being, not what you're doing.

I understand that logically. Yes, I think, I think that we need to spread that to people, that what they do is not what makes them a worthy person, because I think a lot of us fall into that trap. So you don't think you fall into that trap?

Oh, I didn't say I'm perfect at it by any means. I'm sure I can beat myself up for not getting done everything I want to get done, or Comparing, you know, a big one is comparison is the thief of joy.

That's next.

Okay, then I'll let you talk about it. I did not memorize your blog. I apologize.

You read it. Did you like it?

I told you it was really good and I told you we could use it at work.

Oh, I forgot about that. You really did like this one.

I did.

So if you go to whinyplousa.com, you can read the full blog with details because we just kind of summarize it when we talk about it. But step 3 is life is not a comparison. And you know that moms go on Facebook and, you know, I see people in Hawaii and Paris and London and taking amazing vacations, going to concerts. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, I didn't plan any trips for us. Why didn't I plan any trips, Seth? Will you tell everybody?

Uh, because our children's schedules of activities have made it impossible to travel since Ella's internship started, because she has her internship, so we can't go anywhere during that. And then right after her internship ends, I think it's literally the next day, football, heavy football practice season, the season starts, so we can't go anywhere because Max is here. Max has football, so I think there literally might be 40, a 48-hour window where we can hypothetically go do something. Um, but that's about it. If we were gonna do something like we're go away, we needed to go back in time and we needed to do it in June, like right when they got outta school, not realizing that we were gonna run outta time relatively quickly.

I think that the lesson learned for Seth and I this year is that we had time at the end of June and beginning of July to travel. And I think like 4th of July weekend would've been like the prime time for us to plan something. But hindsight is 20/20, right?

They've just gotten done with school. We were relaxing. This is the couple weeks we have nothing to do. We didn't think we better hurry up and cram in a vacation. Yeah, so I, I didn't know it was going to be an issue.

I don't even know that a summer vacation is a necessary thing. But, you know, I think, I think that we need to remember there's, there's so many things about this that I want to say, but I'm going to summarize it with We're on our own path. We're on our own journey. It's about us. It's about my party of 5. It's about my family. It's not about what every other family is doing, and what works for one family is not going to work for my family. And I also want to tell you that I will tell you this 50 million times. You don't know the whole story. You don't know if they can afford the trips that they're taking. You don't know if they're in a happy marriage. You don't know if the trip went well. You don't know if they can afford the pool they're putting in. Like, you don't—

you don't know who else is paying for it for them.

You don't know anything about anyone's financial status or their relationship status. Um, you know, there was a couple that looked beautiful on Facebook, and I knew that they were having terrible marital issues. Nobody knows that. They're not like putting that out on Facebook and saying, we're having marital issues. Or like a perfect example that I wrote about is we went to the Erie County Fair. We had a wonderful time. We left when it was drizzling. By the time we started walking, it was pouring on us. Now, should I have taken a picture because it was hysterical? Yes, but I didn't think about it until later. And so the pictures that you see on Facebook are of us having a wonderful time at the fair. You don't see us drenched.

You don't see me running 3/4 of a mile in the rain, absolutely soaked to go find the car.

Well, so thank you to my husband for getting the car for us. And oops to, you know, it was drizzling, so we're like, okay, we have to go anyway, we have to take Ella to her internship, so we're gonna leave. It started to rain anyway. We didn't know it was gonna start to pour. So bottom line, you don't know the whole story, and please don't compare yourself because it just makes you feel bad about yourself. Just live in your own bubble, in your own world, in your own life, and what works for your family. And step 4 is if something is bothering you, like me, like I'm like, oh, I want to go to Paris and Hawaii and, and Bahamas and all these places. I like really want to help my kids see the world. I want to see the world. Where do I want to go? I need to set goals for myself. So if something is bothering me, if I'm bothered that we have no time for a family vacation, then Seth and I are going to work towards a goal. We're going to save up, we're going to plan, and we're going to go away, like, let's say, winter break. So if something is bothering you, if you're upset with how your body looks and you're comparing yourself to everybody else, then start setting a goal to work on yourself. I want you to love yourself. I want you to love your body as you are today. But if you want to get healthier, that's not a bad thing. Just start making goals towards things that are going to make you feel better.

Absolutely. And if it's— you could, A, don't compare yourself to the Instagram fitness models, and, and B, you could also purposely compare yourself to people who have less, are doing less, are not as fortunate as you, to make yourself feel better.

Oh my God.

Or you could compare yourself to yourself 5 or 10 years ago, if doing the past version of yourself and the current version of yourself would make you feel better about where you've gotten to.

I love that. I just finished Demon Copperhead. The book.

Okay. Oh, was this an audiobook you were listening to? Uh-huh. You don't sound happy about that.

Well, the life that he lived can really make you feel fortunate. The social work jobs that I was sent on to the home visits can really make you feel fortunate. We don't look at all that we have. We tend to look at what we don't have. So we tend to look at what we don't accomplish and what we don't have, and that will set us up for not feeling like enough versus being thankful for what we have and being thankful for what we do do and what we are. So as much as I want you to set goals for yourself, I want to move to step 5, which is I want you to love and accept yourself how you are today. And I want you to understand that everybody is imperfect. I don't know a person in this universe who doesn't have flaws, and I think we're all unique and we all have strengths and weaknesses. And what I want to tell you about Seth is that I don't love Seth because he's perfect. I love all of him. You have even said to me, you expect me to be perfect. No, I never expect you to be perfect. You know, Seth and I have flaws. I will point out my flaws because I don't want to make Seth upset, but Seth is wonderful and sweet, but he can be snippy, okay? And when Seth gets snippy, he'll be like, you expect me to be perfect? I don't. I never expect him to be perfect. I can get cranky, hangry, bitchy. I'm not perfect. I will tell you that if you work on, you know, everybody being well-fed and well-watered, you get much happier family members.

Very true.

Max agrees. So step 5 is that we're loving ourselves and our strengths and our weaknesses and our imperfections, and we're accepting who we are as a person. And I don't just love myself for my strengths, I need to love the whole self and everything about me.

Amen.

How do you feel you're doing with that one?

I work on it every day.

Okay, well, that wasn't a rating.

Did you want me to score myself on 0 to 10?

Um, I would love to know how you feel about this one because it's important.

I'm working on it.

Okay, you're working on it. So part of the motivation behind this topic is that what I realized is that if I don't feel good enough and I complain to Seth about something that's making me feel not good enough, Yep. Then my wonderful, amazing, fantastic, sweet, loving husband feels like he's not enough because he's trying to provide an amazing life for us, for me and him and our kids. And if I complain about something, then he feels not good enough.

Up until now, yes, up until, you know, yet the other day when we had this conversation. Now I'm working on not taking it personally and realizing it's about you and not about any failure or lack thereof on my part.

So if I— it's a win-win. So if I work on feeling like enough, being thankful for what we have and what we do, being thankful for the life that we have and the kids that we have and the house that we have, etc., etc., then it also helps. Now Seth is his own person.

Yeah.

But I want to help and I want to make— we want to make each other feel good, and me complaining to Seth about something does not make him feel good. Now the way to say it, I'm gonna tell you everybody two ways to say it. So, and I'm just using this because this is our most recent example. If I want to go on a vacation, then I— so what not to say to Seth and what to say to Seth. So what not to say to Seth is, I can't believe we didn't plan a vacation this summer. I'm miserable about it. Like, this sucks. Yeah, okay, so the correct way to say it would be, I'm a little frustrated because of the children's schedules and not being able to schedule a vacation, so can we work on scheduling one for winter break when the kids are off?

Yeah, absolutely.

So there's, there's ways to say things.

Yes, that, that way may— does not make me feel personally attacked.

Max needed to make me laugh. So step 6, very important to be your own best friend and to learn to be your own best friend. And what I mean by that is, as I'm spiraling and talking negative to myself Monday morning and talking about my week and what I'm frustrated with and what I'm negative about, I'm realizing what I'm doing to myself. And there's this critical voice in your head, and sometimes people people have called it like the little bully in your head, and it's picking away at me this Monday morning, this past Monday morning. And so I have worked so hard on how I talk to myself, and as you can see, I'm not perfect and I'm still working on it. But I, in being my own best friend, I realized what I was doing and I decided to flip the script and change how I was talking to myself and be like, it's okay, like comforting myself, talking to myself, re— rewinding and saying better things to myself. So we're being our own best friends and we're not letting the critic and the bully take over in our head, and that helps us immensely to feel like enough. And I talked for a while to Seth about this for, for how he talks to himself.

Yes, and that was an awesome communication development, and I have felt much better since then.

Awesome. And I'm gonna move along. We have 2 more, and then we have to get our daughter. One of us has to get our daughter. We'll do eeny meeny miny moe.

I'm going.

There you go. Moe. Okay, Moe, thank you. So step 7 is to celebrate victories along the way. I think we do a great job celebrating our kids. I think I'm really good at celebrating our kids. Uh, you know, they get an A on a test, they get their license, they finish their internship, whatever it is, like, I'm like their biggest cheerleader and I just am so happy for them. Well, what about being my own biggest cheerleader and celebrating my victories? And I'm gonna tell you a small victory. Are you ready for this? I, in my scrambling of getting my children where they need to be, I have not really made myself any appointments this summer. My wonderful husband bought me a massage gift card because he knows how hard I've been working, and he's like, honey, you need a massage. Well, I haven't made myself any appointments, and today I'm like, darn it all, I'm getting my nails done. So after a very long time, I did go and get my nails done and felt like a success, like I celebrated, and I was like, you did something for yourself, yay!

Now you need to book your massage.

So now I need to book my massage, but my point is that as you have small successes, you know, like you lost 2 pounds, yay, good job, keep it up, you know, like whatever it is, celebrate and make yourself feel good. And finally, we need daily reminders. And I talked to you about how important it is how we start our day and how we end our day, but I also want to talk to you about throughout the day. And some people post Post-it notes around the house Seth could post Post-it notes on his computer screen, he's at his computer all day. I could post stuff on my mirror or by my sink or on my microwave so that I see stuff like reminders of, you know, being kind, being your own cheerleader, being, you know, doing things that make you feel like enough. I am thankful, I am grateful, I am enough, like just remind yourself throughout the day and one of the ways that I do that is through a journal. I love to journal and write to myself, so that's another way. But just like catch yourself throughout the day and work on it every day and don't let yourself feel like you aren't enough because you truly are worthy and you deserve to feel that way.

Amen.

So hopefully those tips can help you. My husband and children motivate me to do better because I want to be a good example and I want to help them feel like enough and if I don't feel like enough, that's going to flow to them.

They're gonna come from the top down.

Yes, they're gonna copy me, they're gonna model me, they're gonna absorb it from me. So I'm gonna finish up so that Seth can leave. I want to tell you that we had 2 winners of the August Whiny, Poozy Mom Challenge on Facebook. Come join the supportive free community on Facebook, the Whiny, Poozy Mom group. Nikki and Carrie won the August challenge, so I need to go get their prizes and drop them off. And this Friday on the podcast is Tricia Thornton, and she helps with children's big feelings, so you're gonna love her. And, um, Seth, do your thing.

Please remember to like, rate, review, share, and subscribe, and go to the Linktree at whinyblues.com and check out every one of Rebecca's resources, including signing up for the free 3 times a week newsletter full of informative tips and tricks to make you a better parent and spouse.

Yeah, the newsletter is doing really well. Yes, I think it's the most successful right now.

It is the one making you the most money.

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