Episode 518: Stop Blaming Yourself

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 everybody, happy Whiny Palooza Wednesday!

Happy Whiny Palooza Wednesday!

How is everyone doing? We live in Buffalo, New York, and we have snow, snow, and more snow.

Lots of snow.

Yes, I drove to my daughter's game with blowing snow and couldn't see, and I'm over the snow, and I would like spring to come. How many more months do I have?

I don't know.

February, March, April. 3 months. 3 months. Anyways, let's move to the topic and off of snow that I talk about with everybody lately because all we're getting is snow.

Yes, lots of snow.

As my neighbor/friend said to me at the game tonight, at least we don't have hurricanes and tornadoes.

True.

And I told her she sounded like my husband.

The snow does melt and goes away.

I asked them if I would experience that if I lived in Orlando.

You do get tropical storms. And reptiles and bugs you don't like and heat waves where you can't go outside.

When are you taking me on vacation to Florida?

I offered. We are not doing it in February because we're going on college tours.

And in April, are we going on more college tours?

We can talk about it.

Okay. Ella wants to go on college tours.

So yes, I will get to Florida.

We will get to Florida eventually. So my big birthday— oh, before I move to the topic, My very big birthday is coming in June, and I would like your suggestions. I think this needs to be a topic of the week.

Okay, you're gonna crowdsource your birthday.

So do I go on a trip? Do I have a party? What do I do? Can I do both?

Well, you couldn't have the party here if you were, say, at the Atlantis or something.

Well, I was thinking either— is Universal gonna be too hot? The kids want to go to Epic Universe. I will never turn down a trip to Universal and Disney World. That would be a dream vacation for me, as usual, in a nice resort with a pool. Oh, does that sound so good?

Yeah.

If you live in Florida, how is the weather right now? We should look that up.

I'm gonna tell you because I have a weather app just like you do, but I have Orlando saved on my phone.

Why?

So that when you give me a hard time, I could tell you that it's 45 degrees in Orlando right now.

Right, but what was it during the day? What's it going to be like during the day?

Um, let's see, tomorrow at noon, at 3 o'clock, it will be 64 degrees.

Why is this taking forever to get an answer? Okay. I will look. Good Lord, keep it moving, keep it moving. You don't want downtime. So the topic this week was suggested by my husband after a phone call with our son. Yes, Seth said that I should cover Stop Blaming Yourself, um, which was an excellent suggestion, suggestion based on this phone call that he heard. And we were talking about stuff with with our son on the phone who's away at school, and he said twice— no, many times, not twice.

Every time you said something, he said—

so I would vent something to him about something that's going on, and he— and I would say, I'm so sorry if this is like all my fault. Mom, it's not your fault. It's never your fault.

Stop blaming yourself.

So then we would keep talking, and he would say, Mom, It's not your fault, it's never your fault. And I was like listening to him do it over and over as I was talking to him, and I was like, wow, I really do blame myself for a lot of things. So I was like, Seth said, I think this needs to be your topic this week. And I thought, wow, let's like do a deep dive on this, let's do some research on this, and let's get better at this.

Awesome.

So I love when my children and my husband and my friends point out things that I do that I don't realize that I do. Like somebody— I noticed that I was telling people to stop apologizing, and I was like, I do that too. We all need to stop apologizing.

How about that?

So I, I like when I hear a pattern and notice that I'm doing it, because then I can work on it.

Yes.

And we can't work on it if we don't identify it.

Yep.

Clear as day, started noticing it daily that I tend to blame myself. So I would say a lot of us are guilty of this, a lot of us need to work on this. So let's talk about how we can get better at this. Awesome. Okay, so Notice the inner voice before you believe it. Like I started today. Today was a perfect example of me already making progress. Was I blaming myself?

Yes, but you caught yourself.

But I was like, see, notice that you're doing this and work on this. So Seth got locked out of the house last night.

I locked myself out of the house.

I was at a cheer competition with Lily Max is away at school. Ella was upstairs and Seth went in the garage, and we automatically tend to lock the door when we go into the garage.

I was putting some food in the garage fridge and locked myself out, and then proceeded to pound on the door, which Ella didn't come to. I pounded on the garage door for about 10 minutes. Ella did not— and yelled, and Ella did not hear me because she was on the other— in her bedroom on the opposite side of the house.

And then proceeded to walk to the front door in the snow in his socks.

Gave up, opened the garage, walked through, walked through all the snow to get to the front door so I could pound on the front door and ring the Ring doorbell multiple times and then yelled in the Ring doorbell that Rebecca needed to call Ella and tell her to come answer the door. But Rebecca did— was it— they were doing awards for the cheer ceremony, so Rebecca didn't have her phone up, like it was on silent, so she didn't hear the Ring doorbell. And then finally, after me banging on the front door and Tanner barking, Ella finally came downstairs and opened the door and let me in.

What an ordeal. So I had my phone on silent during the cheer competition, and I had my phone next to me. I wasn't holding my phone. Like, why wasn't I holding my phone?

You don't need to hold your phone every second. See, she's blaming herself.

Okay, so I was upset with myself today, and I was like, you should have— this is what I heard myself. I noticed the inner voice. I started saying, you should have heard the Ring doorbell, you should have noticed last night, and you should have helped him, and I'm really upset with you for not helping him and not noticing. And I was like, screaming teenage girls, and I would— and I was like, there you go again, you're blaming yourself. Like, it's okay, I feel terrible that I wasn't helpful, but I didn't— I wasn't looking at my phone. So anyways, just notice it and ask yourself, is this helpful for the situation? This is not helpful. I'm just beating myself up and making myself feel bad. I am not helping the situation. So this— I'm gonna piggyback on what I wanted to say and explain this first. Separate responsibility from blame. And what I mean by that is I could be saying to myself, you're such a shitty wife, or you're such a shitty mom, or you're such a bad mom, or whatever I'm saying to myself. Or I can just look at my piece of it. So my piece of it was that I didn't notice my phone. So I'm not gonna have my phone in my hand every second, but maybe I can make sure I can learn from this and maybe I can make sure that I'm checking my phone.

I'm not gonna lock myself out again. Lesson painfully learned. I will be consciously aware of the door every time I shut it.

So blame makes me feel shameful. Responsibility is what leads us to grow and change. Responsibility is, this is my piece in whatever the problem it is, and we're going to work on this so so that next time you do better. And then I'm not just bringing myself down with shame, I'm lifting myself up and saying, okay, human, let's grow, right?

Amen.

Remember, parenting is not a controlled experiment. Let me explain this.

Be so much easier.

Okay, so in my research about blame This really opened my eyes because you realize that if we talk about parenting, I'm not the only one influencing my kids. I will tell you, I had my kids— I, I was home when they were little and I was like the main person back then. Now I am not their main person. I am a piece of a very big puzzle. So you You've got their school friends, social media, their father, their grandparents, their coaches, their teachers. They're at school all day. I mean, Lily went from school, she came home for 30 minutes and then went to cheer. And now she's up in her room on the phone with her friends. So, I'm gonna tell you, I have barely had any time with her today. I mean, she's just an example. But Ella's been busy studying and at school. Like, she's barely talked to me. So while they were little, maybe I had a lot more influence. Now there's so many people influencing them. So like, when I don't like how— what one of them is saying, I shouldn't automatically think, oh, you're such a bad mom, listen to how your daughter is talking, right?

She might have gotten it from TikTok.

How about Oh, is this how her friends talk to their parents? Like, who's influencing her? She's seeing people on social media talking to their parents like that. I'm certainly not teaching her to talk to me like that, right? So just remember, this, this one was the most helpful for me of all of them. I am— I gotta stop blaming myself. It's not all my responsibility. I want to influence them to be their best selves, and I'm not going to let them go down— if I feel like they're going down a bad path, I'm going to try to intercede, and I'm going to do my best. But I have to remember, I'm just a piece of the puzzle. Yes, hopefully a big piece.

Yes, very important piece.

But if I was— if I was the only influence, right? I don't— they were two I know, I know, they still weren't perfect when they were 2, right?

Nobody ever is, right?

So zoom out to the bigger picture. I get hyper-focused on something, and I think one of the best questions that I ask myself is things like, will this matter tomorrow? Will this matter in a year? Will this matter in 5 years? Those kind of questions make me realize that maybe I'm making a little tiny— help me with the expression—

when you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

Thank you. I'm like, it was on the tip of my tongue. So just remember, they need us to be consistent. They need us to give them love. They don't need us to be perfect. None of us are going to be perfect. Remind me of that. Every day. Okay, name what's actually hard right now. So in my deep dive, what I learned about mothers is that when we are feeling deep feelings, we are more likely to jump to blame ourselves. Like, we're feeling stressed, we're feeling overwhelmed, we're feeling sad. What are we really feeling? Are we really feeling that we're all at fault, or all at fault, or are we just maybe sad about the situation? I think that was a really good point.

That's really interesting.

I hadn't thought of that. So when I research a topic, I learn too, and then it helps me get better. Absolutely. So every expert that I interview, every topic that I do, I didn't know I was going to grow with you. So that's a bonus.

It is.

It's a big bonus. One of my guests asked me, she said, in your over 500 episodes, have you found that you have profoundly changed? And I was like, wow. I was like, that was such a good observation.

Like, would you not change after spending all this time with all these amazing people?

So many experts, even more amazing like reinforcing things and teaching me new things.

Yes.

Um, let good enough be enough. So I'd like to share my favorite words and phrases. I do a lot of this in my Whining Clues of Mom group on Facebook, free supportive community. Come join us. Um, good enough is one of my favorite expressions because as someone who I think used to be an ultra perfectionist I mean, you would say that I've changed.

Much.

Like, the old person wouldn't leave dishes in the sink.

Right.

The new person is tired.

The house would be flawless before you could go to bed.

Yeah, I'm not there anymore.

Thank you very much.

So, as things are happening, you know, you're parenting, you're going through your day, instead of beating yourself up and blaming yourself, say things like to yourself, like, you did a good enough job, that was good enough, doesn't have to be perfect. And, um, I think I need to remember this in multiple areas of my life, not just in parenting, because like my standards creep up and get too high, and then I reach this level where I'm like, you realize you're setting like impossible standards. So like, I'll bring it down to a more realistic level. And then I'll say, oh, look, it's creeping back up. You need to like put yourself in check here. So I'm just sharing that, that it's an ongoing thing. And when I identify things and make progress, that doesn't mean that I continue in that direction. I might slide back and have to notice it and then move in the other direction, right? With everything. Yeah, with everything. Guilt is not a parenting tool. It's funny how we think that if we feel guilty or we feel blame, that we're doing something. Like, we feel productive. Like, this is something that we're, you know, like when women worry and when they're feeling things, they think that they're doing something that's like productive.

Okay, I did not know that.

Motivation that is rooted in fear, shame, guilt, it's not going to last, people. This is not healthy and sustainable change. Healthy, sustainable change comes from things like self-compassion. That's what gets us the change, not shaming yourself into changing, right?

Because you would just rebound back against— you'd rebel against the shame.

Huh, you're right, you're right. Okay, I love this one. Practice repair instead of rumination.

Okay, that's a good line. And you both, you love our E words, repair and renumeration.

That's our U.

All right, repair, we'll take repair.

But I like our words.

It's an R word.

I need a list of our words. Did we ever do that?

You have a poster. Re—

no, that's not the R words, that's something else, I think.

Oh, okay, well then we should do a re-poster.

So we think that things like going over it in our head is like making things better. How is that making things better? It's driving ourselves crazy. Here's my suggestion: the next time that you're ruminating over something, which means that you're going over it over and over and over again— I have done this Yes. I processed this with Seth and he's like, can we move on?

Didn't we discuss this already? So I still had feelings about it.

So I have had to tell Seth that repetition helps me to heal.

Yes.

Because he wants me to tell him something once and be done. Like, I've told him, let's move on. But then I come back and I'm like, honey, I'm still upset, I need to talk about this again. And he's like, We already talked about this, and I'm like, no, no, no, we need to ruminate and talk about it again.

Yeah, you need to start saying that. It'll stop. But you need to start saying, I need to ruminate on something. That's awesome.

I have learned a lot since I told him that I need to repeat things. I have learned that venting is not productive. I have learned that ruminating is not productive. So what is productive? I'm going to give you one of the best tools repair it, and freaking move on. What is the problem? The problem is that you feel like shit that your husband got locked out of the house and you were no help. Okay, honey, I'm so sorry. I wish I saw my phone, right?

You've been obsessing about it since last night. Okay, you talked about it over and over again. I was like, honey, you said you were sorry. It wasn't your fault, it was my fault. You didn't— I didn't need you to do anything that you could, like, let it go.

So I am telling you, I am explaining. Yes, that's why it's— I'm using it as an example because it was from last night. Yes, it's like the perfect example. Yes, because I obsessed over it and felt like shit and blamed myself, which is ridiculous.

I locked myself out.

Saying nothing and saying things out loud to someone makes you realize how freaking stupid you sound. Okay. That's not the best way of explaining it. It makes you realize how really wrong you might be.

Sure.

Because how is it my fault that Seth got locked out? It's not my fault.

It's not. So, couldn't possibly be.

You apologized that you didn't notice, and then you freaking move on. Let it go. Yes. And move on.

That'd be good.

The next time you're obsessing, I want you to hear me say apologize and move on. Let it go. Yeah, give yourself the grace you want your kids to learn. Oh my God, freaking Lily in the car today, I said, stop sharing your drinks with your friends. Stop it. Cut it out. It's flu season. People have COVID and the flu. Stop it. She goes, I saw you drink out of Miss Nikki's cup, so if you can do it, I can do it. Boom! They are watching everything that we do. She saw me drink out of my friend's cup and she said, well, ever since I saw you drink out of Miss Nikki's cup, I figured it was okay.

I'm like, she knows better. She's just using that as her excuse to push your buttons.

I'm like, dude, I am forbidding you from drinking out of your friend's cups. She'll ignore me. But anyways, my, my point in this is that they're watching everything you're freaking doing. So, ammunition, right? So if I'm blaming myself, shaming myself, being hard on myself, what do I think my kids are gonna do?

Exactly.

So practice compassion and forgiveness and stuff that you want your kids to be able to do, because they're not going to care what you say to them. They're going to watch what you do, and that's how they learn. Okay, look for proof. When you blame yourself, I want you to just question it. When you come up with something, it doesn't mean that it's accurate. It just means that you're thinking of something. So I have the thought that it's my fault about XYZ. What is your proof? And my suggestion is that you get multiple perspectives, because if you're hard on yourself you're gonna move more towards the fact that it's your fault versus if you get multiple perspectives, they're gonna probably tell you that you're wrong and they're gonna give you the proof of why you're wrong. So I mean, Seth is a perfect example of telling me, I don't want you to live with your phone in your hand. Like, I don't want you to, right?

She gives me a hard time anytime she texts me and I'm home and I have— like, she's upstairs and I don't reply right away, she's like You never have your phone with you. I'm like, I, you, I'm trying to be more present and less phone connected. I'm trying to be disconnected to my phone. I will tell you something, even though it annoys you when you need me to see something.

I know that you're all gonna tell me I'm crazy, gonna tell me I'm wrong. However, Max is away at school, Ella is next. It's just gonna get worse. I'm gonna want my phone with me at all times. I have a feeling it's gonna— I have a feeling it's gonna get worse. So I do check. Yes. Anyways, don't be, don't be attached to your phone. Don't listen to me. Don't learn from me. Ignore all of what I just said. So I am human, people. I am human. So I'm not that important. This was not in my blog. I thought of this today. You can read my full blog with more details at wineinclusa.com. All my blogs are there. I thought today, why do you think that you're so important that it's all your fault?

Mmm, that's a good line.

That makes me pretty— I don't want to say narcissistic, but pretty self-absorbed to think that it's all my fault. Why do I think that? Why am I that important?

The world does revolve around you.

The world does not revolve around me, but I just want to help us be easier on ourselves. That was my goal, I think, to make moms feel less overwhelmed and less hard on themselves. I think those are two of my biggest goals, and hopefully I am accomplishing it. I'm certainly working on it every week. Yeah, so hopefully you're along for this journey with me. Being easier on yourself and learning things from this. I will tell you, this was an excellent topic request by my husband, and I think that it really helped me. And I'm sorry, I'm distracted by a text message. I will refocus. I want you to know that Ella also has a new topic most weeks, And she did not come and join us today, but she did write a Teenage Tuesday blog called Gaining Confidence. And I love reading what she writes every week, and I learn so much from her. My kids are some of my greatest teachers, and I love every week when she tells me to come read her blog and approve it. I get so excited to see, like, what topic did she come up with today? And, um, you're gonna love it. You're gonna learn from it. And you can find that at winypluza.com. And I want you all to know that every Friday I have a new guest expert on my podcast, and this week it's going to be Helen Malinowski, which was very exciting for me. When I met with Helen, one of the first things I told her was, Helen, my maiden name was Malnikoff. I feel a spiritual connection to you. So, I loved getting to pronounce her name and do it correctly because let me tell you how much work I had to do with my maiden name. So, the topic is for the moms who carry everything and keep going. I absolutely loved her. I learned so much from her. So, please listen to her on Friday. And we want you all to know that I want to thank you for listening because the podcast keeps moving up.

We're going to talk about that.

Okay, what are you going to talk about?

Okay, so here's what I need everybody to do. I need you to do us a quick favor when you, when you watch this.

What? You didn't ask me this first. What are you asking them to do?

Just trust me. I know that's hard, but come on. Okay, you're going to take your phone, you're going to go to Apple Podcasts, you're going to hit this magnifying glass at the bottom right. That's a search button. You're going to scroll down until you get to the green parenting button. Then you're gonna see top shows, and you're gonna click the top shows button, and we're gonna scroll until we see Rebecca. And I want you to comment in the comments what number the Winey Palooza podcast is when you look. Rebecca, what number are you?

What? Seth, what?

What number are you, sweetheart?

I'm number 6.

And who's number 4?

Abby Howard, always here.

You're closing in, baby. So she's the number 6 ranked parenting podcast.

Okay, so listen, listen, this is, this is the new goal. This is the new goal. So Adrian, I hope that you hear me. Seth and Adrian, this is for you too.

Yes.

When you look at the top podcasts in parenting, I want to interview them. So I want to interview Dr. Becky, Dr. Laura, the Abby Howers— there's two of them, one or two of them I would love to interview. I want to interview, um, Kim Holderness. I want to interview like the top people.

So top, you're 6, so you're there, baby.

So if I'm moving up—

yes, you are, you're gonna say you knew her when—

and getting all of these listeners Like, I want these top people on my podcast.

We will get them.

Oh, Raising Good Humans, they're number 17. Doctor— oh yeah, I know, but I want to have her on.

I know, I'm saying you are now beating them.

This is amazing. Okay, I'm very distracted.

Andy Cohen from Bravo, his parenting podcast Daddy Diaries is number 25. You are number 6.

So wait, why are they going to check where I am?

I want— because it changes every day. So when you watch this, comment where Rebecca is when you see it.

Okay, better yet, listen and subscribe.

And I was getting there.

Give me 5 stars, please.

See, look, you learned rate, review, share, subscribe, all of the things, please.

I don't like how fast you say it though. You want them to give her 5 stars. You want them to rate the podcast, write a review of a sentence or two about how fabulous she is, and you want them to share it with a friend who it would help. Who would help?

You got it now, right?

But I want you to say it slower.

I can work on that.

He's like a walking commercial. So anyway, okay, thank you for joining us. I hope that you liked this topic. I welcome your topic suggestions. People send me topic suggestions all the time. I got the request for a narcissism expert, which we— I think we're getting. and I got a request for the sandwich generation, which I scheduled.

Awesome.

And when you request topics, I want you to know that Adrienne and I take it very seriously. She's my producer, and we look for these people.

Yes.

So thank you, Adrienne, for all your work.

Yes.

And thank you, Adrienne and Seth, for getting me these people on the podcast.

Yes.

And have a wonderful week. Stay warm if you live near us. And stay safe driving around.

Yep.

And we will be back next week.

Happy Winey Palooza Wednesday.

Thank you for tuning in to the Winey Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time. This show has been produced by Market Domination LLC. To discover how you can have your own show completely done for you and turn it into a real published book and become the authority in your marketplace, go to www.marketdominationllc.com/podcastoffer.