[VERONICA]:
Empowered and Unapologetic is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a family of podcasts that changed the world. To hear other podcasts like the Bomb Mom podcast, Beta Male Revolution, or Imperfect Thriving, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Have you ever thought, how did I manage to lose myself? Being a mom is so hard, especially when we’re feeling stressed and disconnected. We exhaust ourselves trying to create this perfect life for our family. You deserve to enjoy your marriage and your kids, without the stress perfectionism brings. I am going to teach you how to identify who you are, outside of all of the roles you play.

Hi, I’m Veronica Cisneros. I’m a wife, mother of three, and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I am on a mission to teach women just like you how to become empowered and unapologetic. Welcome to our girl gang.

[VERONICA]:
Hey, ladies. Welcome to Empowered and Unapologetic. I’m your host, Veronica Cisneros. Today’s guest is a life and business mindset coach who specializes in helping high-achieving female entrepreneurs move from living a life of burnout to a life where they are connected to their emotions, their body and their spirit. She helps bring her one on one and group coaching clients back to their enoughness, wholeness and femininity. So please help me… I totally got stuck with that word, femininity. So please help me by welcoming Mary Hyatt. She is the host of the Living Fully Alive podcast that airs weekly, where she dives deeper into mindset and helps her listeners learn to embody a life fully lived. Hey, Mary.

[MARY]:
Hey Veronica, I’m so excited to be here.

[VERONICA]:
I’m so excited you’re here. So I’ve been listening to your podcast and I was just thrilled. I was thrilled because there were so many things that you… there’s so much information that you were able to go ahead and give the audience and it was like, I have to have her on.

[MARY]:
Yes. You know what? I mean, I’m sure you feel the same way but it’s just such a fun way to almost have like a living workshop right there in somebody’s ears for that, you know, forty-five minutes, or whatever it is. There’s nothing I’d rather do than do that. I love it.

[VERONICA]:
No, I love that you use the word workshop because it’s like, totally that. Whenever I look at people that I want to interview, it’s like, huh, I want to learn how to do that.

[MARY]:
Totally. Yeah. I’m the exact same way.

[VERONICA]:
So can you tell us a little bit about yourself.

[MARY]:
Yeah, so obviously you introduced me great, but I’ll give you a little bit of a background on my story because sometimes when I hear that intro, you know, we have this weird idea that we just, you know, the people we’re listening to woke up that way, and they’ve achieved all these great things and they’re these amazing people. But oftentimes what we don’t get to hear about is the struggle, is what got us to this place. And, man, I have been on a journey that I wouldn’t swap for anything else but it has been a hard one. And the reason that I do what I do and why I love talking to women in particular, is because my struggle sort of began, really, when I left the house. I got married super young, at the age of 20. I married somebody who was about nine years older than me, and we were together for about 10 years before we got divorced. But during that time, at the beginning of my marriage, I went through a pretty traumatic experience of taking care of a nephew of ours who ended up passing away and we were the caretakers for him for two years, and he had cancer. And after that kind of just horrific experience, and obviously, I’m not giving it the warrant of the emotion of it, but for the sake of the time, you know, just kind of to highlight that.

But what was fascinating if I look back and see how I responded to that kind of trauma, there’s fight, flight or freeze, right? And I totally froze. I totally shut down, medicated, numbed out and was a ghost of who I was. I didn’t know how to cope. I was so young. He passed when I was 22 years old, so it was like, you know, I had no life skill, everything was too much to know what to do with it. And so I spent my life for about six or seven years in that place. I gained about eighty pounds, had horrific anxiety, depression, physical pain, autoimmune symptoms that came up and there was this moment – I can remember it so distinctly in my mind – where about seven years of living that painful sort of Groundhog’s Day misery, over and over again, that I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I didn’t recognize myself. I didn’t recognize my body. The only thing that looked familiar were my eyes. And I had in that moment, this deep compassion for myself, like, oh, my sweet girl, you’ve been through so much, and there’s so much more to life than this. There’s got to be more than just suffering and suffering and suffering. And so in that moment, I kind of had a, what we call in the south – I’m from Nashville – it’s like a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment, and I was like, girl, like, we got to do something different. We got to choose to live, we’ve got to choose to be a fighter. And I really made this beautiful commitment, that I was going to do whatever it took to find life again, to find myself again. And it has been a wild journey since that day, of educating myself and doing all kinds of amazing workshops, and became a plus size yoga teacher at the very beginning. That was kind of my gateway into all this. And yeah, it was just cool. So yeah, it’s been a journey to get me to where I am. But it stemmed from that moment of saying, there’s got to be more to life than this. And now is the time.

[VERONICA]:
Oh, I love that. You know, you’re twenty, you’re young, you’re getting married, all of these big life experiences are happening, and most of them you’re not prepared for. I as well got married at twenty, and I didn’t know a lot of things. And my husband and I were basically one… well, no, we were, we were literally one month away from divorce. So I hear you. And to take on your nephew, and then to care for him, yes, you can actually get to this state where you do so much for everyone – rightfully so – and burn out. How did that happen for you, where you put everybody before you and realized you were burning out?

[MARY]:
Yeah. Well, it’s like the symptoms start to creep up and honestly, even after I made that decision where I decided, okay, we’re gonna get our stuff together here and let’s go on this road of self-discovery and self-journey, I was in this habit of overextending myself; I was in this habit of listening to everyone else’s needs above my own. And really, almost my default response was ‘yes’. It didn’t matter if I wanted to say ‘yes’ to something. It didn’t matter if I was already saying ‘yes’ to other things, I didn’t have any time or energy, the answer was just ‘yes’. And for me, that was ingrained in me as being Southern. It was like, you’re compliant, you say ‘yes’, you do it whether you want to do it or not. And that means you’re a “good girl”. And so I was in that kind of belief system, that in order to be loved and accepted, I needed to say ‘yes’. I needed to do whatever anybody needed of me. And the idea of having boundaries, forget it.

And what ended up happening is I ended up starting my own business after this. After I kind of went through a lot of this journey, I ended up starting a network marketing business, or becoming a distributor for a network marketing business. And this ugly monster of over-exertion, over-exhaustion, over-giving came up again. And I started working myself like a workhorse. And I was hustling, and I was hustling, and I was hustling, and to the point where I got myself in adrenal fatigue. And I love this beautiful relationship with our bodies, because oftentimes, when we’re not listening to those warning signals – the ones that are saying, take a break, rest, slow down – oftentimes, our bodies are the ones that sound the alarm, that gives us that warning signal, that say, whoa, you can’t ignore this any longer. It’s like, the whispers become a yell. And that’s exactly what happened to me. I did all this healing work and then I was again, I didn’t address the root issue of my fear around saying ‘no’, and advocating for myself. And so I got myself in complete adrenal fatigue, like, shot. I mean, my adrenals were gone. I had no energy. I was like, true, true burnout. And my hormones were all over the place. And that was almost like the second wake up call for me that said, listen, now your body is telling you, like, you have got to pay attention to this and recognize these warning signals that are happening that you can’t keep going like this. You can’t keep hustling and trying to prove yourself and keep saying ‘yes’ to get this love. Something’s got to change here.

[VERONICA]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love that you said that, not listening to your body’s signals. I see it every day. I’m a clinician and one thing I hear, especially now in kids is, well, this wasn’t such a big deal. And this wasn’t such a big deal. But now… I don’t know what’s happening in my body, but like, my heart starts racing and I get all of these thoughts that come up and it’s hard for me to breathe. And it’s like, girl, that’s an anxiety attack. Or my mom just took me to the hospital because I thought it was dying, and my heart felt like it was going to explode. And it’s like, girl, that’s a panic attack. And as I start to dig deeper, I start to discover and help them identify, you’ve been bottling things up for a very long time. And another thing they’re discovering is, well, where did you learn this from? And we do this as adults every single day, especially women. We do that. We take on another task, and another one. You mentioned signs – what are the signs of burnout?

[MARY]:
For me, it is when, I mean, the first to me is when we are completely disassociated from our bodies. And I love that you brought that up because oftentimes when we start ignoring that we’re hungry, ignoring that we’re thirsty, ignoring that we are tired, to me, that is a real indicator that we’re in burnout. It’s almost like we are living on fumes, it’s sort of like we’ve got our foot down on the gas pedal at a hundred miles an hour and we are running hot. And so I typically see, like, when you see people who are skipping lunch, when you are getting just a little bit of sleep, chances are you’re going to be in burnout, chances are you are trying so hard to ignore the signals of your body that you are hustling, hustling, hustling. And to me, that’s sort of like the… before you’re in total burnout, that’s a real indicator that you are certainly right on the cusp and you’re headed there, when you really begin to ignore those basic needs, the basic little things that we need to survive and to thrive. And that to me is on the road to burnout.

But then this is where the body comes into play. You know, I see a lot of women come to me and they are flat out exhausted. Like, that kind of feeling where it doesn’t matter how much sleep you get, you are just so tired. And you find yourself medicating with more sugar, more coffee, more wine. And you’re basically trying to give yourself that hit of the sugar rush because your adrenals have nothing left to give. So exhaustion, of course, is definitely one sign, one signal that you are in total burnout. Another that I find that gets oftentimes sort of excused in a way is being over emotional. So oftentimes, if you find yourself – almost like with PMS, like symptoms, where you cry at the drop of a hat, maybe you get really angry, like, I know for a lot of the women that I deal with are high-achieving individuals. So a lot of us as women have been taught, it’s not safe to show that kind of vulnerability, to show that kind of emotion, and it comes out in anger. It comes out in these like fits of rage, almost like, you know, if you imagine yourself driving down the road, and all of a sudden you’re yelling at the person who is not paying attention, like, oh, man, I’ve got no buffer left. I’m just letting whatever is right below the surface come out. And it’s hot and it’s strong and it’s super intense. So I see that happen a lot for women, is when they in a sense, I don’t wanna say control emotions, because I really believe that we need to be connected with our emotions and all emotions are healthy.

[VERONICA]:
A hundred percent.

[MARY]:
I mean, obviously, you’re a therapist, you get that. But there’s that thing where it’s like you have no… I think buffer is a great word, you have no buffer. And so it’s just almost like total reaction mode. And to me, the third is when you just sort of notice where your nervous system is almost manic, you know, a little bit; it’s almost like this sort of low-grade vibration or anxiety that pops up. And I see this a lot in burnout, that physically speaking, we get that foggy brain, we get that difficulty bringing sentences together, almost like that manic energy where you’re bouncing from one thought to one thought to one thought, but it’s never really a complete sentence, a complete thought, then you have a difficult time managing just basic run of the mill things. You start forgetting where you put your keys, you start forgetting that you have an appointment later in the day. And you’re oh my god, I just totally forgot. I’m so sorry. So that to me is an indicator that your nervous system is in that kind of fight, flight or freeze response. It’s in that survival instinct response. And that’s because, again, frontal lobe, executive functioning brain has gone offline because there’s no reserve for that. I mean, you’re just in total reaction mode.

[VERONICA]:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

[VERONICA]:
Hey, ladies. Are you loving this episode? Because if you are, share it with your friends, and then come join me in my private Facebook group, Empowered and Unapologetic. On this page, I want you to share what your favorite episode was, what lessons have you learned, and what was your greatest takeaway? This community is filled with women just like you.

[VERONICA]:
So once we’re there – it’s happening because most women are there and they are in this state of complete fatigue, its past being tired – what do you do? How do you recover from it?

[MARY]:
Well, I think the first thing I would encourage for anybody is to have compassion.

[VERONICA]:
Beautiful.

[MARY]:
For that part of yourself that got yourself there because what I find is that there is a deep seated belief that you need to do this for a really good reason, that you need to hustle, that you need to prove yourself, that you need to say ‘yes’. Like I mentioned at the beginning, a lot of this is taught to us from an early age. And we are taught not to have boundaries. And we certainly most likely haven’t witnessed healthy boundaries in our parents, or with our friendships. And so to be honest, it’s like, it makes total sense that we get in these patterns, it makes total sense that we get in these habits of burning ourselves out because not only have we witnessed it from our family of origin, most likely, or those that were closest to us growing up, culturally, if you think about what is glorified in America, and maybe it’d be the same and Japan or Britain, it’s achievement. It’s putting yourself in that place where you’ll stay all the way, you’ll be the last one to leave, that’s what gets you the promotion. And so we have been ingrained, culturally, from a very young age that more is better, longer is better. And so I think that approach of compassion first, grace first, and like, oh, sweetie, you know, like, you sweet thing. Of course you’ve been in this pattern. And to have compassion. I mean, obviously, once you have that awareness, it’s like, ah, yes, that part of me that is striving, that part of me is trying to prove, that part of me that most likely doesn’t believe that I’m enough, and is trying to prove my worthiness. And it starts from that place, to me, of almost acknowledging that we have been operating out of a false belief that we have to do more in order to receive love.

And so from that place, from compassion, detaching that shame that we’re bad for getting in burnout, or man, I’m such a bad person because I didn’t have strong enough boundaries. It’s like no, no, you have a really good reason for doing what you do, then, what I love to teach my clients – and this is sort of a mindfulness practice – is something as simple as just checking in. And that looks like taking your hand and placing it on your heart, closing your eyes, and taking a moment to just allow yourself to be present with yourself. Allow yourself to be in a moment with yourself and to check in, how am I feeling? Like really, really, how am I feeling? What’s bubbling up below the surface that I’ve been trying to ignore, or avoid based on the fact that I’m staying busy or over committing? Bringing presence to the situation, allowing ourselves to feel what we’re feeling. And I know that with the help of a counselor, or coach, this is a much easier process to do. But it’s something simple that we can all do, is just to bring presence and acknowledgement of what is here, what’s here right now? And the second piece of that is slowing down to ask ourselves, what do I need? What do I need? In this moment, when I’m feeling totally depleted, totally exhausted, taking that moment to shift the focus back to ourselves to ask ourselves, what do I need? And this is a practice that I start out with every single morning. It’s my mindfulness practice that I check in with, how am I feeling? You know, I have a whole process of what that looks like. And then what do I need? And that may be more sleep, that may be a glass of water, that may be moving my body gently, that may be calling up my therapist, that may be reaching out to a friend. There’s all kinds of ways that I might need some support, some soothing, some nurturing, but just slowing down to connect to become present. That is the beginning of how you kind of come out of that burnout.

[VERONICA]:
I love that you said that. One thing that I would also like to add and stress on is that mindset. While you’re doing that, you know, while you’re practicing a mindfulness exercise, there are thought distortions that might come in, there are these thoughts that might come in and, you know, I’m not enough or I should have done this, or I could have done that, or this is what’s going to happen because I didn’t do this. I think it’s important to be aware that those are going to come in and as they come in, allow them to just filter out. It doesn’t mean that you’re not doing it right, if those thoughts come in. This is something that you do have to practice fairly often, so that that voice starts to become lower and lower and smaller and smaller, so it’s not so present and you’re able to be in the moment, and participate in it on purpose.

[MARY]:
Oh, God, I couldn’t…

[VERONICA]:
So, yes, absolutely.

[MARY]:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, I think that that is the journey. I mean, mindfulness, when you begin, I can remember beginning and you have that voice of shame, you have that inner critic, you have that judgmental voice that wants to repeat on the loudspeaker that you’re not good enough, that if you just tried harder, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. If you would have done something sooner, this wouldn’t have happened. And I love, Veronica, what you’re saying about just acknowledging like, okay, that’s that voice, that’s here. And I can let it be here and let it kind of flow out. And the more you practice, and I’ve seen this in my own journey, and with my clients, that bringing in that voice, that is sort of the what I like to call your higher self, which is the part of ourselves that is coming from total, unconditional loving, and there’s a part of ourselves that is in full agreement that they are worthy, and enough, just because they breathe. It is the part of ourselves that understands, has so much grace, has so much compassion, so much empathy. And eventually, as you practice this sort of calling in that voice, because sometimes where we’re at right now, we can’t connect with that voice. That’s not our voice. Our voice is the one who berates us, the one who…

[VERONICA]:
Go, go go.

[MARY]:
Yeah, and I truly believe we have many, many voices inside of ourselves. Sometimes dysfunctional, and sometimes really amazing. But it’s like calling in almost like a different voice, calling in a different part of ourselves that is more gentle, more tender, more kind. And I like to think of that part of myself as that really loving, mother energy. And even if you didn’t have a mother who demonstrated this, it’s almost like the archetype of a mother. You can imagine somebody who’s just like, come, you know, lay your head in my bosom and let me just like, pet your head, and you’re like, thank you. Just like, I needed your love. And that’s what I think of when I think about my higher self, that one that just says, oh, honey, I know, I know, I see you, I hear you. Everything that you’re going through, it matters. And really calling in that voice in that moment of what do I need, and allowing yourself, giving yourself permission – and again, this gets easier over time – to ask for what you need. And that, to me, is a big part of this journey, is giving ourselves permission to admit that we have needs, that it’s safe to have needs, and that little by little we can begin to become our own advocate, and meet those needs. And this isn’t an overnight journey, for sure. I mean, like I said, this is indoctrinated from an early age for women, to put everybody else’s needs above our own. But it’s just a really healing journey when we can begin to welcome in that voice and create that pause, that inner pause.

[VERONICA]:
And I think that’s something that we can do at any time of the day. I love that you said how culture and how our society has pushed us to believe that we have to do all of the things, when in reality when you’re doing all of those things… I like to ask, what is the resentment that you’re harboring while doing all of these things for everyone else? And with that resentment, are you really truly connecting? Or is this just something else that you’re left with and only you know that you’re left with these emotions, only you know that you’re filled with resentment, and you don’t want to do these things? The other person has no clue. And so it is impacting the relationship because you’re not saying anything. So what other ways can we practice forms of self-care, such as mindfulness?

[MARY]:
Yeah. I mean, I think the first kind of important thing to note is that a lot of times when we think about self-care, we think that it is the bubble baths and the going and getting the pedicures and setting up our hair appointments.

[VERONICA]:
[Unclear]. No, no, no.

[MARY]:
Right. It’s like, okay, this is sort of that superficial part of like, okay, like, you know, self-care, and that’s obviously media shows, right? That’s like, okay, Self-care Sunday is a face mask and a glass of wine. I wish that were true. God, that would just be a lot more fun and enjoyable, which again, love all those things, not not harping on that. However, when we think about true self-care – taking care of self – again, it really goes back to becoming an advocate for yourself. It’s imagining if you had, like, I don’t know about you, but I’ve got some really amazing girlfriends and they are always, like, if I’m in a situation that is maybe less than ideal, my girlfriends are going to come in and say, girl, don’t put up with that, you know, like, come on, come on now, like, did you forget how amazing you are? And they’re advocating for me, they are coming in and showing me like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not okay.

And so it’s almost like bringing that energy into our own life, of kind of recognizing how we can become an advocate for ourselves. And I think that one of the most powerful things that we can do in terms of self-care, is to create a pause before we say ‘yes’. So if your immediate response is to just agree to everything, it’s like, yeah, sure, sure. No problem. I’ll be there at the PTA meeting, or I’ll do the bake sale, or, yeah, I’ll do this extra work at work or whatever it might be. If your instinct is to say ‘yes’, creating a twenty-four hour pause is so powerful, where you literally say to somebody the moment they ask you if you can commit to something, you know what? Thank you so much for thinking about me. I’m going to give this some thought and I’ll get back to you tomorrow, or I’ll get back to you on Monday. I’ll have the weekend to think about it. But one of the things that I had to learn is that I wasn’t quite brave enough at the beginning to just say ‘no’. And I had a lot of people that would say, like, you know, ‘no’ is a complete sentence. You don’t have to give anybody a reason, you don’t have to explain why you say ‘no’. ‘No’ is a complete sentence. Now, I don’t disagree with that but when we are trying to find our voice and when we are beginning this journey of becoming an advocate for ourselves, it’s almost like we have to sort of tiptoe our way into feeling confident at saying ‘no’ to somebody.

And I love having a twenty-four hour pause – at minimum; sometimes it’s longer – where you give yourself the chance to check in with yourself and ask yourself, do I really want to say ‘yes’ to this? Is this something that would bring value to my life, joy to my life, an experience that I want to have into my life? Or is this going to cause, like you were saying, Veronica, more resentment? Is it going to cause more drain, more exhaustion, and I simply don’t have it to give right now? And giving yourself just that little buffer allows yourself to check in and really determine is this in the highest and best use of myself to say ‘yes’ to this? And if it’s not, then you’ve got a little bit of time to say, alright, how can I crash this and give myself a little bit of time to feel more confident in saying ‘no’. It’s like, you know, I thought about it. Thanks so much for thinking of me, but I can’t commit at this time. And eventually, over time, that gets easier and easier and easier and you may not need that whole twenty-four hours. But even now, even though I’ve gotten really good at my boundaries, I still have a buffer before I say ‘yes’, just to make sure, just to check in. And that, honestly, is like one of the quickest things that we can do to create our ability to not keep in that pattern of the burnout.

[VERONICA]:
Absolutely. Well, because not only have you been able to assert yourself, you’ve also been able to set a healthy boundary, which then changes the relationship altogether. And even though you’re not forcing the other person to change by any means, because that’s completely out of our control, you’re able to go ahead and say something that is so powerful. And the other person is able to go ahead and respond to that. But at no time do they ever have power over you.

[MARY]:
No.

[VERONICA]:
Absolutely.

[MARY]:
And even when it feels like that, and that’s what’s so great about the pause, is there are some people in our lives that we want to impress; there are some people that we want to make happy. This is really, really evident in our family relationships. This is the hardest thing to do in family dynamics because our family is set up on these, you know, kind of systems where it’s like, well, Mary always says ‘yes’. I’ll ask Mary, she’ll agree to it, she’ll help me out, she’s… part of my identity, I’m a middle child of five girls. And so I kind of got given that identity of, like, oh, Mary is the one who comes in and bails people out. We can always count on Mary. Well, gosh, I mean, if people believe that about me, I don’t want to go and not have people count on me. I want to be the one that people count on. And so it’s challenging. I mean, you’re kind of coming up against part of how people define who you are, as somebody who’s reliable or whatever that might be. And that’s where just that simple pause gives you that courage, and you’re getting to sort of rewrite who you are, and rewrite your boundaries.

And it’s not comfortable. I mean, I have to consistently reiterate my boundaries with my family, like, it doesn’t ever seem to quite click. And it’s one of those things that I just have to go, I gotta be a broken record. I gotta just say this a million times over because it’s my work, it’s not their job to respect my boundaries if they don’t want to – it’s my job to speak them; it’s my job to hold them. And I have to repeat myself. And yeah, that’s frustrating. Would it be easier to give in and just yeah, I’ll do it, even if I’ve worked a really long week? But the reality is, is that my job is to take care of self. My job is to be an advocate for myself, just like my girlfriends would be and say, girl, you’ve already worked a forty hour week. No, you’re not going to babysit those kids this weekend. Like, sorry. And so I’m thinking of it like that, which makes it a little bit easier, like what would be so obvious to my friends? Okay, that’s helpful, to think of it from that place.

[VERONICA]:
Absolutely. I love that. You mentioned family; one of my members, she’s in my VIP group, her name is Christy – shout out to Christy – she actually, she’s been working on this for some time, boundaries with family, saying ‘no’ to family, asserting herself, expressing what she wants and what she needs. And usually she gets so frustrated and so overwhelmed that it ends up being a shouting match. Well, she actually practiced this, she’s been practicing this for some time, she actually practiced this with one of her kids, and she said, no, kept on walking, I won’t say which child but they got so frustrated, and they started yelling, and usually she would yell back. And she just kept on walking. She was like, I was walking, I kept on walking, and she’s like, and all of a sudden, they came up to me, and they were like, oh my god, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. And they were able to have a healthy conversation. And that relationship in that moment, grew, and it was stronger. And she felt connected. And she’s like, holy crap, this actually works. So yes, that pause does work.

[MARY]:
Go, girl, go. That’s awesome.

[VERONICA]:
Shout out to Christy.

[MARY]:
Yeah, seriously. And you know what’s so amazing about that, and I’ve witnessed this so many times, is like when you change the rules on somebody, and all sudden you’re saying ‘no’ to things that you’re typically saying ‘yes’ to, I expect now that there’s probably going to be a little bit of a temper tantrum.

[VERONICA]:
Oh, gosh, of course.

[MARY]:
And adults have temper tantrums. Really, really big ones sometimes. And it’s like, oh, yeah, like, it’s okay that this change for this person is uncomfortable for them. It is okay, that they don’t want it to be different. They’ve relied on you being the way that you’ve been. And it’s also okay to let that person sit in their own discomfort, and to sit in their own grief of the rules changing, or you not showing up in the way that they’ve maybe really relied on you. It’s okay for them to go through that grief. And I think we can create space for people to have that and know that sometimes it’s not like, okay, great, like, you said, no, no problem. Sometimes there’s some pushback. But again, it kind of comes back to advocating for ourselves, like, being that broken record. And one of the things that you mentioned with Christy that I thought was powerful is how she’s learning to ask for her needs.

[VERONICA]:
Yeah.

[MARY]:
And to me, that’s another huge part of self-care, is learning how to ask for what we need. And as my therapist would always say, the power is in the ask, because sometimes, if you ask for what you need deeply, and from a place of real insight, like this is really something that I need, and I need to speak this and use my voice in this, sometimes that person is unable or isn’t willing to meet those needs. Like, if it requires, like, we want somebody to say something to us, or do something for us, or meet our needs in some way, sometimes they can’t or aren’t willing. But our power – and this is part of the self-care, being an advocate for ourselves – is to ask anyways, that the power is in the ask. And so I just love, just kind of wanted to like put a little moment of that, of highlighting that because I think that’s such a huge piece of self-care, is identifying what we need, going to the people that we know, hopefully if we can intelligently ask, go to the people that we know that could give it to us and can give it to us. And also recognizing sometimes that isn’t going to give us exactly the answer that we want. But that we ask anyway. And the power is getting comfortable in the asking.

[VERONICA]:
Absolutely. The thing is, you were able to go ahead and communicate. So therefore instead of holding on to that weight, and holding on to it and keeping quiet, you were able to communicate, you were able to say something. In a sense, you were also able to let go of that rock that you were carrying around. And even if it’s not met with that response, like you said, you’re still able to drop that rock and walk away with this lighter amount of weight. And every single time you express yourself it becomes lighter and lighter so you’re not carrying everything. Yeah. I love that you said that.

[MARY]:
So powerful.

[VERONICA]:
So I wanted to go ahead and ask you a question I ask everybody. What are you doing right now, right this second, to live the life you want to live?

[MARY]:
That’s such a great question. So the thing that is something I almost like cyclically return back to, again, and again, and again, is my journaling practice.

[VERONICA]:
Yes.

[MARY]:
And I’ll go away from it for a little while, and then I’ll come back to it. And just recently, over the past, probably two weeks, I’ve come back to the journaling. And what I’ve realized is that in order for me to show up, and like be totally present for my life, I have got to verbally process all the thoughts that are in my head, I don’t know if anybody else can identify with the overactive mind. But mine is like, I’m processing everything. I’m very attuned and aware of my surroundings, I’m very conscious. And so I’m downloading a lot. And I need to have a way, and believe me, I got a coach, I got a therapist, I’m all about all that, I’ve got an amazing partner. And yet, it’s not quite enough, you know, I’ve got to sit with it myself. And so to me, one of the things that gives me the ability to be present and not be kind of stuck in those moments of being triggered, and go down the rabbit hole of oh, my God, and spinning and spiraling, down, down, and down, journaling. Coming back to sort of almost like getting it out, all on paper, kind of wrestling with it, coming to a place of completion with that. And it just gives me freedom. There’s this beautiful process of writing it out that creates freedom for my life, so that I can show up for it in a way that is fully alive.

[VERONICA]:
Beautiful, beautiful. Journaling is so powerful and a hundred percent therapeutic, so yes. The last question I’m going to ask, what advice would you give to the mom who feels stressed and disconnected?

[MARY]:
The first thing that just comes to my mind is compassion. And just like, I hear that, you know, like, you are not alone. I mean, this is one of those things that is collective, even when it doesn’t feel like it. And I think that that by itself is healing, to know that you are not alone. And one of the things that I think is so healing and so powerful, is community. And I have seen this in my group coaching programs, this sort of healing of the sisterhood. So often we are in the state of comparison, and well, she’s a better mom than me, or she has a better body than me, or she’s able to juggle this in a better way than me. And to find a community of women who can speak honestly, whether that’s a recovery meeting, whether that’s a group coaching program, therapy circle, spiritual circle of some kind, but being able to be in community with other women so that it can just help to begin to validate that you are not alone and that there is a beautiful support of people who are willing to come alongside you and encourage you and that you can call. I mean, that has been one of the most healing things for my journey is coming back to the sisterhood, coming back to healing the sisterhood wound and realizing that there are women here that can be my dear, dear friends. And that’s a game changer, to be able to walk with people versus thinking I’ve got to figure it out by myself.

[VERONICA]:
Boom. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Where can we find you?

[MARY]:
Yeah. Well, you can go to my website, maryhyatt.com. There you can find all the podcast episodes, of course, the Living Fully Live podcast. Every week, I’ve got a new episode coming out so you can go subscribe wherever you love to listen to podcast episodes. And then honestly, one of my favorite places is Instagram. So if you’re on Instagram, come find me there. I love doing Instagram stories. That’s a fun place for me to connect with people. I’m always answering DMs, so shoot me one if you want to. That’s just @maryghyatt. But if you need just one central place, maryhyatt.com, you’ll find everything there.

[VERONICA]:
And one more question because I got to ask – do you have a free giveaway for the listeners?

[MARY]:
Of course. Yes, I do. This is like really fun for me. I have an amazing, what I like to call the Anxiety Recovery Kit. Something we didn’t talk about today is that I love to do guided meditations and as a yoga instructor as well, this is something that is just a gift of mine. And so I have this beautiful Anxiety Recovery Kit that if you struggle with anxiety, or stress, this will be so helpful. There are three separate guided meditations including a panic attack meditation, a breathing exercise audio, and then I also have essential oil blend recipes for anxiety. And you can grab that at maryhyatt.com/recoverykit.

[VERONICA]:
Nice. Nice. Mary, thank you so much for being on. This has been amazing.

[MARY]:
Thank you, Veronica, so much for having me. I’ve just loved every minute of it.

[VERONICA]:
All right, ladies. Until next time, I’ll see you later.

[VERONICA]:
What’s up, ladies? Just want to let you guys know that your ratings and reviews for this podcast are greatly appreciated. If you love this podcast, please go to iTunes right now and rate and review. Thank you, guys.

Many women lose their own identity in the shadow of being a mom and a wife. We are a community of women who support each other. We leave perfectionism behind to become empowered and unapologetic. I know you’re ready for the next steps. If you want to become empowered and unapologetic, get my free course, Unapologetically Me over at empoweredandunapologetic.com/course.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests, are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.