186: How to meet your needs with Mara Glatzel

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Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. I'm so excited to welcome today's guest, Mara Glatzel. Mara holds a Master's in Social Work and is a writer and intuitive coach and a podcast host. But really, she's a needy human who helps other needy humans to stop abandoning themselves and start taking up space in their own lives. Her new book is called Needy: How to advocate for your needs and claim your sovereignty. And when I read this book, I realized how much it intersects with the ideas that we share on the show here. And that a super important part of being able to see and meet our children's needs is our ability to see and meet our needs. And so we're going to take some steps towards doing that today. Welcome Mara, it's so great to have you here.

Thanks for having me, I am really excited to be here with all of you.

Super. And so I wonder if maybe we can start at the beginning of the book. And you can tell us the story that you open the book with, please. Yeah, so..

Yeah so the book begins with the story of where I am sitting on the couch in my living room. And my partner and I are kind of just hashing through what we want our week to look like. We have a three week old baby who's sitting in my lap. And my partner says, you know, "I want to do this. And I want to do that. And I'm going to do this." And I am starting to panic inside. Having this feeling that I am very well acquainted with now having two children have been apparent for a little while. That feeling of they are trying to grab every last shred. You know, there's only a shred to begin with. And they're trying to grab it. And just how uncomfortable that was. And I knew I wanted to ask for things myself, I felt like I wanted my partner to know what I needed and advocate for it for me. I didn't feel like I have the bandwidth to even figure any of this out. And just that overwhelming pressure built up feeling of needing something not knowing what it was and feeling completely overlooked, because my partner wasn't prioritizing whatever it was that I needed for me. And this pressure moment building to me getting really upset, and my partner saying that if there's something that I need, I need to state it. I need to safeguard it. Because what had been happening to that point was I was always the queen of, "Oh, that can wait," or everything I need was malleable and flexible. And my partner really reminding me that that was my job and me coming to terms with the fact that I wanted to be mad at them. But really, I felt so abandoned in that moment. And I was mad at myself and learning what to do with that which really has changed my life certainly has changed my relationship. But how powerful those moments are where we are keenly aware that we need something, but we don't know what it is. And maybe we feel angry because we want to outsource that or have somebody else figure it out for us.

Mm hmm. Yeah. And of course, my first question was, when did your partner learn how to do this?

It's so funny. Cookie is the unsung hero of this book. People love this story.

And they came out of it pretty well.

You won't be the first to say I don't think that's what I said. But that's how I remembered it and my partner is really good at knowing and asking for what they need in a very just straightforward way. And they're really confident. And they don't have any hang ups around whether or not I think they're deserving of whatever it is that they need. And so they've been a great teacher for me in that way that both needing to be direct about what I need, and also that it's my responsibility to advocate for that, and also take responsibility for any stories that I might be telling myself about what they might think about me. And sometimes, frankly, they are thinking those things about me, and those needs are still my responsibility.

Okay, so let's get into some definitions. We talked a lot about needs already. What is neediness? What are needs?

So I think about needs as something that we require in order to exist and to thrive. And I spend a lot of time dealing with as I know, you do as well, the difference between needs and wants. I find my clients are hyper concerned with the difference between a need and a want, again, because there's that shred of time and space, and what do I prioritize, and in what order. And so I like to describe it in this way.

​​A need is what you require. And a want is what you desire. And they work in tandem, where the need is kind of the what and the want is the how. So the need might be a need for love or a need for celebration, a need for rest. And then the want is that specific flavor that you desire that need to arrive in. And so I'm less concerned about hierarchy and more concerned about how they interplay with one another. Because I think our satisfaction depends on not just knowing what we need, but also knowing how we want it. And so neediness, this book obviously I named my book needy, I've spent a lot of time with the word needy and it is compelling for people. It makes us many of us recoil when we hear it because we it is evocative, it makes us think of something in our minds. We have that association that hungry ghost never satisfied; burdensome, nobody wants that person around. It's maybe endangers your sense of belonging in your relationships. And as I spent time with the word needy, I got curious what is neediness but a desire to matter to be prioritized. And for those of us who identify for better or for worse with that concept of neediness it is this hyper attuned desire to matter and that we've put all these different signifiers. If this person notices this about me, or they do this for me, or they relate to me in this way, I will know that I matter to them. And if it doesn't come through that door that we anticipate seeing through that neediness builds or worse, we, because we're socialized those of us who people of all genders socialized as women, as girls are taught not to be needy to suppress her neediness. And of course, just like anything that you try to suppress, it builds with time it builds with suppression. And so the less we allow ourselves to have needs, the more that pressure builds until you're sitting on that couch, screaming at your partner, this little baby in your lap, because you have needs and your needs are not not even not being met, but not even being identified or brought to light or respected as a vital ingredients to a life that feels good to you.

Yeah. Okay. And so for regular listeners, I just want to clarify how I see the terms that Mara and I are using intersecting right. I think we're using needs in very similar ways. And so listeners will be familiar with me speaking about strategies to meet needs. And I really see that as what Mara was saying here is wants right, and there may be multiple ways, multiple strategies, as I would say, to meet a need. And so So Mara might be able to identify multiple things, I could want to help me meet an underlying need so just to help listeners to kind of put that into a framework that we're familiar with. And I think one part of the story that really resonated for me was on the outside, you were kind of a pillar of success, right? You had your master's degree, you were launching into a career. You were getting ready for a beautiful wedding. And on the inside the story was very different, right. And I think that's a pattern that I see very commonly with parents that I work with, and I'm wondering if you see it very often as well and with the the people that you work with.

I do see that I mean, I see it, of course in my own life and I see it every day with friends with you know, in the grocery store. You see this all around, this feeling of it needing to hold it all together. I used to refer to this as shellacked over, which meant to me perfect and hard, like impenetrable. And that your worth, as a human is associated with how perfect you are, and how successful you are, and how much you do and how quickly you do it, and how perfectly you do it. And that there's no room in that conversation for our humanity, because our very humanity is a threat to that kind of unsustainable productivity. And I know, for many of us, it's a recipe for burnout. It's certainly a recipe for unraveling in a multitude of ways. And then of course, you're faced with that thing that you have been avoiding, and contending with all of the messages that you have been running from about what that thing means about you. And it was, the reason that I really shifted my work towards in this direction after having my first daughter is because having her was the point at which I no longer had the capacity to be perfect anymore. All of a sudden, I was too tired, and too hungry, and too overwhelmed and too new, and too concerned with things that I had no real understanding of how to make happen. And it felt like everything that had helped me to gather all of my control all of my perfectionism, there was just too much to hold on to. And so this is the piece that fell. And for a person who had been pouring energy into perfecting myself over much of my life, the vulnerability of that was crushing. And so I really understand why we hold ourselves together in that kind of way, and why we resist any moments of vulnerability that might crack that perfect veneer that perfect shellacking. And also, so much life lives on the other side of it. And for me, it wasn't trying to do something, it was just, I could no longer fake it. And then I had to contend with what was real. And what was real is not always great, but it's there, right? It is what it is. And it depends on the day. And that's what it means to be in a human body.

Mm hmm. Yeah. And I want to come back to that vulnerability. I wonder if we can stay with the burnout for just a little bit longer. Because we've done an episode on parental burnout from a research-based perspective. And at the end of the conversation, or after the conversation, I can't remember which the guest was saying to me, you know, it's just heartbreaking that I see all of these primarily women, not always, primarily women, and parental burnout. And it's my job to try to fix them, when they are not the problem. When it's these the way that we've been trained to suppress our needs and societal expectations that we are perfect - we're the perfect parent, and we are the perfect employee as well, and, and that we're doing everything perfectly, that seems to create this. And so I guess maybe I'm wondering, are there signs that parents can be looking out for like, before everything falls apart? I have needs and they're not being met even if I don't know what they are yet. How can parents start looking for that?

Yeah. So in the book, I walk readers through a very simple version of an exercise I do with my clients all the time when I'm teaching about burnout, which is to notice and make a list of the feelings in their body, the physical sensations or symptoms, the circumstances like what starts to happen as you begin feeling burned out, and starting with whatever information arrives for you. We all have different access points. The more that you tune into this, the more information you will receive. And beginning to plot it on, you know, like the pain scale that we see at the doctor's office and thinking about it from zero to 10, 10 being acute burnout and zero being life is great. Because the sooner that we're able to become aware of our own symptoms of burnout, the easier it is to reverse it certainly because once you get to that late stage burnout, the reversing takes time. But the sooner that we can realize those symptoms and they might be small and I find for parents, this looks like a heightened sensitivity to noise, a quickness to anger, a volatility. There's a swinging between mood states, where one moment you're enjoying your child and then the next moment you're just you're touched out, but I mean, it's just a second - it's just a second and you go from zero to 90 touchdown. And for me personally, I start to notice the fit of my underwear just like being annoyed by it or the feeling of an elastic in my hair. I'm so hypersensitive in that way, that now that I have come way down into these more nuanced signs, I can see I'm heading off in that path towards burnout. So the more that we can check in with ourselves, the more easily we're going to be able to access that. But this requires prioritizing checking in with yourself, which is a real struggle for all of us who are taking care of small humans, I have a three year old and a six year old and my days are busy and loud. And so this is something that I do in two minutes, when I'm lying in bed in the morning, before somebody comes in jumps on me. If I can get into the bathroom by myself and close the door that might happen then to before I am leaving, I work here in this shed (If you're on YouTube, you can see my office) before I walked back into the main house, and just these small moments of asking, "How am I doing right now?" Just simply, "What's my energy like? Am I dehydrated? Am I feeling something specific?" And having that connection with yourself which can, it can be challenging to fit it in it also can be overwhelming to contend with, especially at the beginning, you might be living in a relationship or a home environment where there's very little support for that. So there are many reasons why you might resist checking in with yourself. But starting to notice how you are doing can help you to both catch burnout before it gets all the ways that level 10, but also to reverse that burnout. Because we are accustomed to, you know, I'm a big problem, I need a big fix. What's the big plan and I don't have the energy for a big plan, so I guess this is going to have to wait till tomorrow, or next week or when my kids go to college. I'm not sure. But burnout is really reverse through the small moments to, "Oh, am I eating? Am I drinking enough water? Am I asking myself how I'm doing?" These small ways of tending to ourselves can help us to become more resourced in the mess of it. Because I have so many clients who want to compartmentalize and say, "Well, this time of my life is really intense, or really stressful or really overwhelming." But when my kids go to school, or when this happens, or when that happens, then I'll take care of myself. But that pattern of putting your care on the other side of something becomes just that a pattern. And when that thing comes, or kids go to school or whatever, you will find something else to put your care on the other side of because that's how patterns work. And so beginning to find ways to be with yourself in the mess of it right where you are right now, and bring even just 1% more resource to your body, 5% more resource to your body, what would that look like? And for me, this looks like eating meals every day. And not just eating off of my kids plates or whatever is like left on the counter or, you know, really thinking about what am I get to eat and eating specifically multiple times over the course of the day. These kinds of things are not earth-shattering, they're not brand new. This is not the first time that you've heard them. But realizing my capacity, my personal resources are dependent on how I'm feeding myself, how much water I'm drinking, because the circumstances of my life are not going to change anytime soon. So what small things can I give myself or ask for to be well fed?

Yeah, by the end of the book, I was almost convinced to start taking vitamins again. Not quite enough to actually do it. But so I think what you're saying is resonates so much with something we've talked about here over and over again on the show, which is the idea that in our culture. We consider that anything that happens in the head is valid and useful. And anything that happens below that is kind of irrelevant at best and useful, you know, completely misleading at worst. And so what you're saying is something that I've been saying for a while as well, which is we need to reconnect that right that not everything valuable happens up in the head but when we can pay attention to our bodies. Our bodies are trying to tell us how we're doing and our bodies can see This stuff coming in come from overarching perspective, which is how you're describing it. And also kind of moment to moment, like, if my kid is asking me to get up from breakfast again for the third time, and I'm noticing the tension building, that's a signal that I have a need that is not paying that. And I can tune into my body and see how my experience is changing from moment to moment. So..

Yeah, so one thing about getting up from the table, and then one thing about the disconnect. So we have, there's a boundary in my house that I have with my children, which is, I make them whatever they want to eat. But I will make you one delicious breakfast, exactly as you want or meal, whatever meal it is, exactly, as you've asked for it exactly as you want it, it's going to come to the table, I'm going to also sit at the table with something. And if it turns out inevitably, that what you want is not what you want, and now you want something different. I'm gonna finish eating this first round, and then I'll make you whatever you want. And that was such that's such a small example. But I noticed, you know, last year, there was this period of time where my partner was taking care of a friend of theirs who had cancer. And I was home with my kids by myself for months and months and months. And I noticed that I was becoming enraged in those moments where I was so hungry. And I also wanted to take care of my kids. And I do want to feed them. And they're asking for a million things. And I was in my body becoming so angry. And I wasn't, it didn't get to the point where I was getting angry with my kids, which I'm grateful for. Because I noticed, hey, this anger is rising, and I need something. I need something here that will help us all to understand what the order of things will be. And also to teach my kids that just like them, I'm a human. Just like them, I'm hungry. Just like them, I'm going to sit down and feed myself. And so we started that boundary. And it really I mean, there's always still pushback, of course, but it has been so life changing just for me personally, to not experience that stress of I don't know I'm waiting. And you know, I'm feeding everybody. Now I'm finally sitting down. And now you want real cheese and pancakes and 17 different things. So back to the head disconnect from the body. I spend a lot of time in my work, talking to people who have experienced a lot of interaction over the course of their lives with diet industry, which of course is stacked straight on top of White Supremacy, which of course has so much to do with toxic productivity culture that you know this tangle in here that has us so disconnected from our bodies. And for women and people of all genders who are socialized as female. And during their upbringing, we struggle to connect with our bodies because we were taught that our hungers were wrong and bad, and too much. And so if we think about our needs as hungers, which they are, of course, we want to avoid them. Of course we mistrust them. This reunification between the head and the body is complicated for so many reasons, for so many of us that we resist doing this work, and we must trust ourselves and we think I get clients who asked me daily, how can I be sure if what I think I need is what I really need or what I want is whether it really why would you think that it's not what you need? Or why would you think that it's not what you want, which I say tongue in cheek, I know exactly why right? Because we are quite literally unsure of what we're hungry for all of the time. We can't separate between what we're genuinely have an appetite for and what our social conditioning tells us is right and OK to eat. And that extends out. And so the healing that happens when you begin to attune to your body even in small ways is so powerful because you can learn how to trust yourself again and rebuild that connection with I want and need this thing. It is Okay to want and need this thing, and I am healing myself every moment not what I asked for that thing but when I just allow myself to experience it.

Yes. Okay, so so for Hex you were coming at this from a perspective of that I get rewarded for being. I get rewarded for being in a certain body type and being a great employee and being a great parent and putting everybody else first. So why would I start putting myself first and trying to understand what my needs are when it's so scary?

So all of this works for a time. And this is the problem. It is so seductive that we can trespass against ourselves and barrel against our own energetic capacity for a period of time, and it works, and by design, because we all have experiences. So I mentioned that I was solo parenting for a period of time last year because my best friends, or my partner's best friend was terminally ill. And after 10 months of us caring for him ultimately passed away. That was a moment where I needed to go above and beyond what I typically put out in terms of energy. And we have experiences where things happen, things are hard, challenges arise, and we need to rise to the occasion. But when we are consistently against that pattern, consistently borrowing against ourselves, consistently putting out more than we have, we are creating an unstable situation where our energy, the bottom will fall out. And just like anything, it's easy to believe it's gonna last forever while it's working. And then it's heart wrenching when the bottom falls out, and it feels personal. But it's not. It's such a setup that we are asked to give more than we have to offer, to be more perfect than we genuinely could possibly be. And that that is what seeing is seen as right and good. And then we're to blame for not keeping up when, of course, we couldn't keep up. Of course, the system's not made for actual humans. And so when we think about that burnout, too many of us personalize those symptoms of burnout, and use them as evidence that we need to work even harder. I'm feeling emotionally fragile, I'm tired, my thoughts are incoherent. I don't want anyone at work to think that I'm less than so I have to push more, I have to push harder. I have to drink more caffeine, have more sugar, whatever it is, it's keeping me going. And all the while doing damage and burning myself out. And so I think that when it comes to that benefit, we do get external validation for looking a certain way and performing a certain way and being a certain kind of parent. And the consequences of those actions may not be visible externally. I mean, eventually, they often are but for period of time, but they are felt internally. So you know, you reference this part of the book where I talk about how I was graduating with my degree, and I was getting married, and all these things were happening, I was getting great grades, and all of these things were it looked beautiful from the outside, but on the inside, I was crumbling, and panicking that I was crumbling because it meant I had to do more it meant I had to work harder, because I had bought into this idea that we can't have anything and everything if only we are willing to work harder. And not knowing that the entire philosophy that I was basing my effort on was a setup that I was never going to be able to rise to the occasion in the way that I had been conditioned to believe was possible. And that first time that I really entered into deep burnout, I was heartbroken because the grief of realizing that I couldn't just biohack or life hack my way to perfection. And it felt so personal, like everybody else was making it work and what was my problem? But it wasn't my problem.

Yeah. And I think that leads to something else here in the book that where you said you were having a hard moment, like a really hard moment and telling yourself, you know, this is just how it is. This is what being an adult is like. And so we I think are socialized to limit our ability to see how anything could be different, which I mean, it serves the system, right that we can't imagine any other way of being than being perfect and putting our needs on hold. And so I guess how can I know that there is another way out there than this way that I've been socialized? And that I see everybody else, frankly, when I look out right at all the other people I know, they're all doing the same things that I've been doing. So how could there be another way?

I think for me, I always come back to this question of if it were going to work, it would have worked already. And noticing that even when we think first of all, we don't know how other people are making it work. We only see what they allow us to see by and large. And so being really cautious about what information we're using to uphold that myth of everybody's got it figured out. Everybody's successful, everybody's doing these things, because needs will be met one way or another. And we have a multitude of ways of meeting our needs, that kind of keep us for a period of time. And, again, it's seductive, it works until it doesn't work anymore. And for me, this was really the point of realizing that everyone else was doing it a certain way. And that way didn't work for me. And that was hard to wrap my head around. I felt at first, like it was just me, until I started to connect with other people. And this is part of the reason why I wrote this book. It's part of the reason why I have my podcast, where I talk to people about needs, because we don't talk about needs as much as we could or should. And the more that I started to talk about my needs, the more than I realized, people are not doing well, by and large, people are not holding it all together. The people that I had been looking up to as these monoliths of productivity and success, that they also felt like they were crumbling, they also want a different kinds of lives. They also couldn't figure it out. And it is confronting to do things in a different way than other people are doing them. And also, each and every one of us is responsible for the felt experience of our lives. And when it came down to it, I didn't want to be burned out anymore. And that meant I had to make decisions. And I had to start saying no, and I had to stop being a people pleaser. And I had to learn how to deal with healthy conflict, which I still do not care for. And it required all these skills that I were uncomfortable to learn, but infinitely more comfortable than that experience of burnout where I was lost to myself for chunks of my life at inconvenient times that I did not plan for. And so really thinking about, instead of what's working, what would be sustainable for me. And what I've found is that for many of us, the more that we welcome ourselves into our lives and our humanity and reconnect with our bodies, the more than we actually get done. And I have really no investment in telling anybody to prioritize their needs, because it's going to make them more productive. But also, it makes me more productive. And it makes the productivity feel better. And I think this is the piece is that on the other side of your needs, your body, your care, is that you're going to be able to use your energy in whatever way you want, more sustainably with more consistency. And in a way that genuinely feels better.

So I want to talk a little bit about we've talked a lot about how we were socialized in this way, right. And we've it's sort of been impersonal, like we were socialized. But there were agents of that socialization. And there were many of those some of those we will never meet, you know, the media things that we read. Some of those are our families of origin. And so I was thinking about the part in the book where you were talking about being in front of the stock display at TJ Maxx, and just realizing that you have not made most of the decisions in your life that got you to standing in front of this display at TJ Maxx. And that it was interactions with your parents, primarily your caregivers that shaped the way that you interact with the world because they wanted the best for you, right. They wanted you to succeed out there in this toxic world. And so they tried to shape you to do well in that way by teaching you to disregard your needs. And so we have so far we've been looking at this from the perspective of the parent who's listening to this podcast. And what I'd like to do is also look at the perspective of this parent who is interacting with this child today, and how we are already potentially teaching our children to override their needs, just as we were taught that same lesson. Where do you see there?

It is so challenging to thread the needle between allowing our kids to be who and how they are and also pray practically doing things like getting them to school on time. Like, yes, I want you to eat breakfast and I don't want to rush you and I want you you don't feel competent. Put your own shoes on, but you're three and you the time mistake is that there are these logistical experiences that you have every day as a parent where you might rush past what your child needs. And one place that I've really noticed this in my own parenting is where I want my oldest daughter's support or help with something with my younger daughter. And so I noticed myself one day saying, can't you see that I need your help right now. And she was drawing. And me seeing that my parents needed my help is my primary issue, that looking outside of myself, to notice everything that's happening around me and be responsible for it has negatively impacted me over the course of my life at that vigilance and that responsibility, that moment of looking at my six year old and saying, like, "Can you see that I need your help?" And her frankly sayin, "No, do not care," and just how much rage I felt. But also, when I stepped back how great that is, and how that is exactly what I want is for her to understand how to be a part of a community, a family, without sacrificing herself and her interests. And so I think a lot of This is really challenging to your own perception of what it means to be good. And we have all of these moments where we, my partner is often for separating on whether or not my kids know how to clean their rooms, and what that will mean about them as adults, and they are so small. And I don't feel the book has been written on whether or not they're going to be cleaned adults at This age. But that that is obviously a trigger for my partner having grown up in a family where the room has to be clean, and that's really important. And so our children challenge us in these perceptions of what is right and good, and what is all supposed to look like and how we are teaching them or not. And when I approach parenting from a needs perspective, I'm really looking at how connected to themselves are my children? How able are they to be able to communicate what they're feeling what they're needing, to me, and to other people around them. But of course, if I'm not modeling that, with them, how are they going to know those skills. So this is a lot of me doing what I was not taught to do as a parent, which is to say, to be a person in the room, and to say, I've made you one round of breakfast. And now I'm going to eat this because I'm hungry. And when I'm done, I will make you the next round of whatever it is that you want. Or I'm feeling really overwhelmed by the volume in this room, and I'm going to step outside for a few minutes. And then I'm going to come back. And allowing myself to be a human in front of my kids shows them what it looks like gives them the actual language, you know, when my children say, "Mom, can you do this thing?" and I am genuinely not able to do that thing. And I respond with, "No, but I'm available for this instead" or "No, but how about we do it at this time, keeping that connection, I'm giving them vocabulary for how they can have conversations about needs. Because I work with adults all day, who do not understand how to have the most basic conversation about their needs, and that it's not personal. It's our job to ask for what we need is the other person's job to assess whether or not they have the capacity to meet us in that need. And to respond, it's our job to tolerate that response and get curious and creative about how else to meet that need. And so modeling that back and forth with my kids enables them to have those skills to talk to their friends, or their teachers. And still many of us prioritize our kids needs without allowing ourselves to have needs and expecting that they're going to know but we teach them by having needs in front of them. And of course, I don't mean making my children responsible for my needs or making my children responsible for my emotions. I take responsibility for those, but allowing myself to be a person in the room and say, "I'm really tired. And I don't want to go jump on the trampoline right now. Can we sit and read a book instead?" gives them that permission to not always be on to not always be scanning the room not always be vigilant and responsive and knowing and I'm hyper aware of the fact that I'm raising two young girls that are growing up in a world that is expecting them to do exactly that. Don't you see that I need your help right now.

Okay, I want to make a brief point on what you said about all of the examples that you gave where you were saying what you can and can't do. You are potentially changing your experience in that environment. You didn't say, "Stop jumping on the couch. Stop making a noise." You said, "I am finding this overwhelming and so I am going to remove myself." And I think for parents that can be like, oh, whoa, kind of moment. I don't have to get them to stop doing that thing. And I could move myself to another room and get my need for calm and peace and ease in this moment met in a way that maybe I hadn't considered before. So I just want to make sure that that didn't slip parents by. But on your broader issue of how we're being socialized. I think this links to a question that somebody in my Parenting Membership post, when we've been we've already been having a conversation about someone brought it in and said, "Hey, John, have you seen this?" I'm like, yes, I've seen it. We have an interview scheduled. And so she said, Okay, can you ask this question, but she's wondering, where's the line between striving to make changes to meet your needs and learning to appreciate life as it is? She says, of course, we want to change our unjust society, of course, we want to meet our needs, live in alignment with our values, and be open to creative radical change might help us get there. But to what extent is that feasible for many people in a society that doesn't much care for our needs? And I think that links to our children as well, right, like, are we doing our children a disservice by having them articulate or being able to articulate their needs when most of the rest of the world doesn't care about their needs?

Well, look, I think that the reality is, I am so committed to doing the work of creating a more just world where mental health matters, where needs are at the forefront, where our humanity is revered. And also, that is vital work. And it is absolutely true that many people do not have access to the resources that they require, to have their needs met. And also, I am the vessel for absolutely everything that I pour my energy into. And if I'm not in good working order, my ability to affect change is immediately in jeopardy. And so I think that we have to straddle the line between how we show up for what we value and what matters to us, and how we are resourcing ourselves to be able to do that for the long haul. And there are so many places personally and professionally, that I pour my energy into in this regard and I see that if I'm burned out, I am abused to nobody. And so when we think about this piece of how do we attend to our values and impact our communities in meaningful ways? And how do we rectify that with needing our own care, we have to do both. That means we might move more slowly. But the reality is, change happens slowly. And change happens by people who are resourced enough to continually show up for it over the duration of time. And we need to be able to be resourced to stay in the conversation. But then there's this piece of how do we find that line between striving, changing, working on ourselves and experiencing peace. And we live in a culture that conditions us to always be looking for the next thing to change, to always be working towards that our own betterment. And this happens in parenting to write, we get fed this all the time, take care of yourself, because it'll make you a more patient and caring parent, which is often the case and also you need care, period. No matter how it impacts your kids. Period.

You're not defined by your ability to show up and get to..

No and so in we are not always going to be looking to improve ourselves that quite often caring for ourselves means being in our bodies and doing what is needed. And it's it's not sexy work by and large. Especially, you know, I've just come through This book launch time and I'm in this period of contraction and really thinking about how am I caring for myself right now. And this is a time of replenishing a lot of what I've put out over the last six months, enormous swell of visibility and it's not, you know, many times we don't want to need what we need. We want our needs to be different or to be more compelling or more fancy or or to look better on Instagram or whatever the case may be to be.

Be more socially acceptable.

Yeah, more socially acceptable. And usually they're not. And so giving ourselves what we need, and letting it be what it is, is so important. And sometimes that looks like doing less, a lot of times that looks like doing less, and not bettering ourselves. Because if we put that into a social conditioning context, that toxic positivity and productivity culture where we think well just do more, do better change this, well, what am I working on now, that constant pursuit delivers the message to us that we are not OK as we are. And I prefer to approach any kind of change from the inside out from a place of, because I love and care for myself, this is what's next for me not because there's something wrong with me, but because I am intentionally occupying my life. And this is what is next, you know, kind of on my journey. And it takes time to rebuild yourself trust to occupy your life in such a way, but it's worth it. Because otherwise, we're rushing from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing that an article or a podcast or person pulled us to do. And not coming from that place of love for ourselves love for our lives. Love is heavy, maybe we'll say acceptance. And the more that we're able to slow down and do things because we genuinely want and need to, instead of because we think we should, then it frees up a lot of that energy around. What am I pursuing? What am I chasing? And what am I needing?

I agree with that, and also raises a challenge for me that I'm not sure how to address. And, you know, we've talked a lot about the Instagrammable, you know, the bubble baths and manicures all that stuff. That's sort of the common, you know, this is what self care is. And then there's sort of a layer underneath of we'll do less, outsource more. And then I'm thinking, Okay, well, here are we outsourcing to right? Aren't we just displacing the problem on to, by and large, frankly, black, black and brown women who are taking on the care and the cleaning tasks that we are trying to free ourselves from so that we can have more time to meet our needs? And so how can we reconcile that, right? Like my doing less challenge just pushes that on to somebody else?

Yeah, when I'm talking about doing less, I'm really talking about doing less, and not about outsourcing more. And that is the reality for many of us. And I think what is really important within this ecosystem is to think about how we humanely treat ourselves. You know, so many of us say, I would never talk to somebody else, the way that I talked to myself. But I don't think that that is the case. And I think that the way that we judge ourselves, and the way that we speak to ourselves directly impacts the way that we judge and speak to other people. And that absolutely impacts people who work for us in a multitude of ways. And so the more that we can honor our own humanity, the more space and reverence and respect that we have for other people's humanity. And so it's essential that we start to do this work because it's different. Outsourcing a job or outsourcing an activity, versus outsourcing your emotions to somebody else, which is too often this comes part and parcel. And if we're unable to deal with our own needs, and we're unable to attend to our own emotional health and well being, we make our needs other people's problems. And so this directly impacts the relationship. So if we're in such a place where we're outsourcing things to somebody else, we need to honor that person's humanity. And again, just like we're not going to be perfect, that person is not going to be perfect. It may not be exactly as we want to it may not be exactly when we want to it may be more expensive than we think that it should be or whatever that is. But the more tolerance we have for our own humanity, the more tolerance we have for other people's humanity as well.

So reminded me very much of Tyson Yonka Porsches books and talk which I just finished and there's a section and on violence and how if we are if violence isn't present in our lives, that's because it's been outsourced to somewhere else. And this way, so what you're saying about I'm not outsourcing my my feelings, my needs, right that I'm owning that. So just an interesting thing that came up that folks might want to explore a little more. If that's an idea that resonates, oh, my goodness, we could very easily talk for another hour. I so wanted to get into the stages of growth. And that you leave in channels throughout the book. And that was one of the pieces I loved most about it was that you set up these four stages of growth at the beginning and then kept coming back to it for each of the examples. And so I guess I'll just leave listeners with the knowledge that that is there. Because I think this is, you know, it's it's sort of a heavy conversation, right, that we were talking about our social conditioning, and the hard work that it can take to break free of that, and what implications that has for the people. And so kind of where I wanted to end was that you I think, towards the end of the book, you talk about making a list of things that we enjoyed doing, as well as things that we've seen other people doing that we think, Oh, I might like that, as a way of looking for things that are nourishing. And I was wondering if you could tease us a little bit by telling us some of the things that have appeared on your list that you have tried that nourish you that maybe you didn't even know would nourish you before you put them on that list and give them a try?

Well, I'll tell you, the number one thing on my list right now is one of those things that I've seen other people doing and I anticipate will bring me joy, but I'm not sure. Roller skating, particularly with some kind of colorful roller skates. That's been something that I you know, whenever I'm looking for this in my own life, I'm training myself to notice that even tiny moment of hmm, or Hmm, where I just want to lean in. And it'll happen when I'm watching a TV show, scrolling through Instagram. This was a scrolling through Instagram moment where I saw somebody else roller skating, and I thought in the sunshine and I thought, well, that looks like a fun way to move my body and also infuse it with play. I could probably do with my kids winning all around. So I put that right on the list. Another thing that is bringing me a lot of joy is being the worst amateur gardener I am now in year five of practicing watering plants. I love the idea of it, and I love doing it, but it is being a beginner at things. I mean, I think this is what this list has really taught me is that it's Okay to be a beginner at things as an adult. For so long, my perfectionism prohibited me from being caught in the act of doing anything new. And so now I give myself that permission, but it's confronting, I took a pottery class, I loved it, it was horrible. Every single I thought I was gonna go in and make a beautiful mug. And I was in this class for 10 weeks. And I barely learned how to center my clay and I was full of loathing and judgment. And it was a practice every single time to just be a beginner. And the more that I practice that the more freedom I feel to be a beginner at things and to be bad at it and to enjoy it anyway. Watercolours. Love. I just I got a dog, and I am training that dog. And I don't, I haven't just, I just always had dogs as kids, I never knew that they needed to be trained so extensive. So you know, all of these things is like just, I wanted to get a dog because I wanted to walk that dog twice a day outside, and that has born out and the training is something I'm learning to love. But following my own instinct, there's so much value in in noticing what genuinely pulls me forward, versus what I think I should like, or what I think is Okay, or cool to like, what other people like and that has brought so much joy, I am the kind of person that I like to joke that my inner child needs to connect with her inner child because my inner child was like in a mock trial costume. And so I have to dig really deep for play. It is happening, it's coming forward, the more that I allow for it and attune to it, the more that I genuinely feel inclined to practice it to play and to be uncomfortable being new.

It's something I mean, you just lit up with just barely, even if I were just listening can hear that in your voice. And I guess I just hope that your roller skate experience is different from my roller blade experience. I don't think I've been on roller skates, but my husband got me rollerblades, I want to say like 12 1314 years ago and I would put them on like being an inch forward and get to a crack in the pavement. I'd be like, Oh, just before I fell on my butt, so you have a little more stability under you with.

So but we will see Yeah, we will see.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. It was so great to read your book and to see there's you know, somebody out there who's having these really important conversations with people. And so for listeners who want to dig into This and get This book for yourselves. Mara's book is Needy: How to advocate for your needs and claim your sovereignty, and there is a link to it at YourParentingMojo.com/needy. Thanks so much Mara.

Thank you for having me. This was wonderful.

Hi, this is Jesica from Verlies, Panama. I'm a Your Parenting Mojo fan and I hope you enjoy this show as much as I do. If you found this episode especially enlightening or useful, you can also donate to help Jen produce more content like this and also save us from those interminable mattress ads. Then you can do that and also subscribe in the link that Jen just mentioned. And don't forget to head to YourParentingMojo.com To record your own message for the show.