← The Tamsen Show
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome back everybody to the tamsen show so if you clicked on this episode it's probably because you're constantly on and you know what i mean by that constantly performing somehow still wondering why you feel behind and listen same with me i don't know about you but lately in particular it feels like no matter how much i do there's this little voice in my head that's like yeah you could be doing more though and it's exhausting so most of the advice out there that i see is like be more productive fix all your habits optimize your entire life do this to do list to make you better and better but the question is with what time and with what energy because that's what i feel like every day even when i wake up at the beginning of the day and none of that really explains why we feel this way so today we're gonna dig into what is under all that with leading psychotherapist isra nasser author of toxic productivity this is her book and i'm so excited to talk with her about it you're gonna love this book and what i love about is that she puts words to things that most of us have been feeling for years and just maybe couldn't understand why by the end of the conversation i think you're gonna have a clearer understanding of why you think the way you do why you push push push all the time and what you can do to move through your day with less pressure and maybe a little more ease i'm so glad you're here for this one if you're loving the show please take a moment to leave a review for me or a comment from wherever you're listening because it really helps more than you know.
- [01:34]
Today'S podcast is sponsored by midi health i walked in with real symptoms brain fog exhaustion anxiety and walked out with nothing but a suggestion to wait it out that's why midi matters they actually listen and they treat what others ignore this is midlife care that finally makes sense ready to feel your best and write your second act script visit joinmitty dot com tamsen today to book your personalized insurance covered virtual visitors that's joinmitti dot com tamsen midi the care women deserve this episode is brought to you by progressive insurance you chose to hit play on this podcast today smart choice make another smart choice with auto quote explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once try it at progressive dot com comma progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates not available in all states or situations prices vary based on how you buy.
- [02:32]
All right with that isra nice to see you welcome to.
- [02:35]
B
The show thank you for having me and for the wonderful introduction oh my.
- [02:39]
A
God well very well deserved so as soon as i saw the words on the COVID of this book i'm like i need the book and then i need to be talking to you because i think that all all of us have dealt with something like this i think all of us feel like it's never enough we've gotta do more we've gotta move faster smarter quicker to start off what is toxic productivity in just plain and simple language it is a.
- [03:03]
B
Mindset that we have where we become completely obsessed with outcome and achievement and getting something and it becomes a way for us to feel good about ourselves so we're not being busy to be busy we're being busy and productive to feel good about ourselves so we want.
- [03:18]
A
The end goal in order to just.
- [03:20]
B
Feel better exactly okay so how good you feel becomes completely dependent on whether you get the achievement or the outcome or the check mark and that's why we continue to just pursue it over and over and over again by the.
- [03:32]
A
End of this i know you're going to give us an answer so that we say okay you're not going to always feel like this because it could feel like an endless pattern you know i've said before it's never enough right like you keep going and going and going so did it look like that in your own life how did you get here to be talking about this.
- [03:47]
B
Topic yeah it definitely did look like that i'm in my twenties like you know the standard like overachieving high functioning getting the grades getting the things but not only just in academics and my career but the pressure is also in your personal life in your relationships the kind of friend you are the kind of daughter you are and so in all of your roles you start pursuing like just getting the outcome and that's what i was doing but the promise here is you're gonna get to that last check mark and then you're gonna feel good but what was happen and that happens with everyone is you get to that place and it doesn't feel good enough and another check mark appears on the horizon that you start working towards and so i started feeling really disconnected i was feeling very disillusioned by this idea that i had spent so much time getting all the things and you know outwardly it really felt like i did have it all people would say wow like you're doing all these things and how amazing but there was such a big disconnect about how i felt about my life which was things are not good enough i need more and how awesome other people felt about it which was wow this was so.
- [04:54]
A
Incredible i feel like you're in my brain because i think my husband's gonna be the happiest with this because he's like what is going on and i don't celebrate the achievements oftentimes i'll have the achievements and not celebrate them so i want to get back to that for somebody listening right now that's like oh she's in my head too are there signs that someone has crossed over from being busy into toxic productivity the.
- [05:20]
B
Biggest sign is you're ignoring your wellness so you're skipping lunch you're not sleeping well you're not eating properly you're flaking on friends or relationships cause you want to do more other things that make you feel like that's the check mark so that's the biggest one is you are you know ignoring your wellness or your productivity is coming at the expense.
- [05:40]
A
Of your wellness so for example you're staying up later to stay on the computer you're getting up earlier maybe not going on your walk is that i mean is that what you're talking about.
- [05:49]
B
Yeah or you're skipping lunch while you're working or or you choose to leave dinners or cancel dinners because you think you should be doing something more productive instead of resting you put pressure on yourself to do something with that time you don't give yourself a break vacations have to be extremely organized and you have to hit all the check marks on your vacation list when really we're supposed to be relaxing it's in these really subtle ways that we start pursuing something that feels validating that's bigger than.
- [06:21]
A
Us how often do you see this in your line of work and is it everybody that has a little bit.
- [06:27]
B
Of this to an extent i think everybody has a little bit of this to an extent right now because of the culture we're in we are in a very hyper optimized culture we are in a culture where we are being told everything needs to be at its optimal level and you can always do more so you can see this in self care culture your self care can be more streamlined it can be more efficient you know you need to drink like loaded coffee or loaded waters you need to count your macros and people are counting how much they sleep and the metrics on it we do this with our friendships we do this with the kind of dinners we go to the places we go to and so essentially what's happening is every area of our life is like barreling towards perfection because we want to meet this level but that's not possible and it's not healthy and it's also not necessarily value aligned so that's the other thing when we are in toxic productivity and we are like racing towards outcomes a lot of times we're pursuing things that are not value aligned value aligned meaning they.
- [07:31]
A
Don'T fit your value system or value aligned meaning that doesn't really reach that end goal of wellness even if you think it's a self help whatever it.
- [07:40]
B
Is so what i mean by that is it's not actually leading you to the life that you want it's not connected to your values but you might be pursuing it cause you saw it on instagram cause you heard someone talk about it you know you went to a party and someone said it or you feel like you should many of us are trapped in that i should mindset you know of course i definitely feel this when i have free time that was one of like a big red flag for me is i would get some free time and i'd be like oh i should like i should do something else like i should do this and the thing that i should do needs to be like cute and.
- [08:15]
A
Perfect so what do you do when you have that free time now compared to when you were doing your i.
- [08:21]
B
Shoulds what i do right now is i mean sometimes the voice will come up in your head sure it's the world we're in it's the way you've been raised you know it's the people around you so that still does happen but i'm much better at talking myself out of it so there's this habit of learning to fact check yourself and something i call like the title swap so instead of giving myself the title of oh you know i have free time i should be productive like my title is productive i will swap that internally to myself and say oh i have free time i want to be restful so i'm changing that to align with my value or i want to be creative or i want to have connection and that can guide me to slowing down when i have time instead of speeding up when i have time.
- [09:10]
A
Why do so many of us do you think feel like we have to earn our worth by doing more it's.
- [09:16]
B
A big feeling and it's so deeply embedded in so many people okay and one of the biggest reasons is if you grow up in a home culture where you were constantly rewarded for achievements you just learned that you are more lovable and you are more valuable and you are more worthy when you're achieving something and so rest becomes a threat to that and then rest comes with the label of lazy you're not achieving something you're wasting time those are things that i call the unwanted identity we don't want to be labeled as that no and we learn early on that we can actually barter affection with achievement so we can get more love if we are achieving something you know it's.
- [10:01]
A
Funny when you say that about lazy and i hear my i hear a lot of people do it often it's like oh i'm being so lazy today or i love being lazy as if we have to proclaim that so somebody says it's okay exactly i mean that's how i feel oftentimes on a sunday i'm like i'm just gonna be lazy today am i still accepted by being like that okay so you write in the book about the wanted and unwanted identities that you were talking about i really want people people to hear this i want listeners to hear this because i think it's something that so many of us as women especially you know whether you're in your twenties thirties forties fifties sandwich generation are dealing with why does that resonate so much with women when it comes to identities because i think we hear it more in our heads than men do yeah i think.
- [10:42]
B
It starts from like the way women are socialized right from an early age like there are a lot of labels put on young girls you know to be the good girl the smart girl the polite girl and oftentimes those labels if they come to men come much later in life you know boys can be rambunctious and they can break things and people don't actually have labels for that but if a girl is very polite like people will name it immediately like oh you're such a polite little girl right and you'll see people call little girls very pretty very rarely do you see that for little boys maybe it's on their birthday or like some event that's happening right so i think that's the first thing we learn to understand and identify with labels very quickly as women and then as soon as we kind of hit like i want to say like early like not even teens our labels are used to really kind of police and control our behavior and what's expected of us because in the very typical gender dynamic young girls are it's demanded that they kind of rise to the occasion and be responsible and care for their siblings and be ladylike exactly and that still happens like we wanna say it's twenty twenty five and people are different but unfortunately that does still happen one of the labels.
- [11:57]
A
That you hear women get girls get.
- [12:00]
B
Versus guys get i think if you look at the work environment right a lot of times men can be very assertive and they're called assertive and when women are assertive they're called cold calculating the b word all of those things right harsh too much you know kind of edgy and the behavior is the same when a woman makes really good notes in the workplace she is correctly perhaps labeled as conscientious but that label comes with subservience like you'll make the notes cause you're just good at it right but nobody questions whether a man even makes good notes or not no and i don't know if this has ever happened to you but this has happened to me where i at a workplace we were peers and the expectation was that i would just make the notes cause i was the girl at.
- [12:49]
A
The table completely completely and i think that's societal i think that's dating back to the nineteen fifties or whatever it is that the woman's a note taker and the guy sits there and is the thinker exactly which is so bizarre that we still have that conversation but.
- [13:02]
B
It'S very rare so that's label yeah and then there's like the label of nurturer the label of the person who keeps the home together like oftentimes you'll hear men talk about their wives as like the soul of the house what they really mean to say is you're the project manager right and you're keeping it running but you don't see those labels for men they're limited labels for men i hope people can hear this.
- [13:26]
A
Because i really i agree with you and i don't know that it's ever been kind of broken down quite so simply and understanding but you start to hear those words if you're paying attention to them now i hope after listening to this people hear that and i hope they hear the wanted versus unwanted labels or identities yeah so i'll quickly.
- [13:43]
B
Just share a little about that so the wanted identity is the identity in your home that was highly rewarded it doesn't necessarily mean it's a good or a bad identity it's just the one that you learned as a child is going to give you affection so sometimes in families that could be the rebellious kid cause they're getting attention right and so what you learn inside is is who i have to be always and that's what i always have to strive for and the reason women struggle so much more with toxic productivity in certain ways is that the wanted identities that we develop in the home are often around doing things and doing more and doing for others and we don't really pause to think about whether that's something we want or not.
- [14:33]
A
I swear the holidays come earlier every year i mean one minute it's fall now i'm looking around my house realizing i have got to pull things together before people start showing up and the first thing i always do i gotta check the guest room right fresh guest towels updated linens it's those little touches i love to make especially when my dad comes to town this season i went straight to wayfair and ordered new guest towels and bedding because that room always needs a refresh it arrived fast prices were great and it made me feel like i was actually ahead for the first time in a long time that's what i really like about wayfair when you're in the middle of all this it's a one place you can go get what you need without running all over town i'm also doing some organizing before the holidays hit you know i always love to do that wayfair has storage for every single space i'm focused on the kitchen and the closets right now bottom line you can get your home holiday ready without the stress get last minute hosting essentials gifts for all your loved ones and decor to celebrate the holidays for way less head to wayfair dot com right now to shop all things home that's w dash a dash y dash f dash a dash i dash r dot com wayfair every style every.
- [15:44]
B
Home.
- [15:47]
C
Dsw designer shoe warehouse is the one stop shop for all your footwear needs with sneakers boots and everything in between for every style mood and occasion you'll definitely find shoes that get you at prices that get your budget dsw has what you need but more importantly they have what you didn't even know you wanted you never know what you'll find at dsw find the shoes that get you at prices that get your budget at dsw stores or dsw dot.
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A
Com.
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How do parents influence whether or not you have toxic productivity parents can.
- [16:26]
B
Certainly name certain things inadvertently like they're not even trying but they might be like oh you're so good for like getting all the grades here's an extra cookie or they might you know brag about you and these are good things but if that's the only way you're receiving validation from your parents then that connection sticks so for parents you can definitely validate the external efforts of your child but diversify the things you value in them instead of just the achievement perhaps value their creativity or their problem solving or just their presence their kindness and so parents like depending on what you are praising your kid on they learn that that's the most important thing and the second biggest way is how the children see you you know so i grew up in a home where my mom i have no memories of my mom sleeping in ever zero and if i ever saw her up until the last ten years if i ever saw her lying on the couch it's cause she was sick i was just.
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A
Gonna say that that's the only time i remember my mother on the couch otherwise i remember her in the kitchen or putting us to bed or going.
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B
Grocery shopping even days off my mom would be like oh it's my day off i'm gonna take out everything from the cabinets and reorganize it it's constantly.
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A
Movement it's const.
- [17:44]
Does toxic productivity show up in our relationships too with other people aside from just our relationship with how we relate outward that is the.
- [17:52]
B
Most interesting thing that i shared in the book because a lot of times people think that productivity is work related but the truth is you can burn out at work and you can also burn out in your romantic relationships how so because toxic productivity shows up in romantic relationships in a way that if there is too much caregiving on one side right yes that's the social structure but internally are you putting milestones in your head about the romantic relationship are you adding pressure on yourself to achieve those milestones do you only feel good when the external milestones are met that you've put in the relationship and is the mechanics of pursuing it coming from shame from the fear of missing out or being left behind or not feeling good enough so these powerful drivers push us to pursuing our romantic relationships at a speed and like at a magnitude that's perhaps not healthy is it hard.
- [18:55]
A
To tell the difference when you're in a relationship because you do want to hit certain benchmarks right deciding whether or not if you both decide this is something that you want to move forward with you know how long before you know whether or not this is you know going to be long term you know maybe if you're talking about children when you want to have children when you might be getting married what's the difference between you know normally being concerned on a normal level about what's going on in the relationship and then overdoing it where it gets to be toxic.
- [19:24]
B
It'S the line between are your decisions based on your values so i mentioned that a little bit earlier but the way it shows up in romantic relationships is you know we all grow up with being told that relationships need to look this way and you need to follow this timeline i think doing the work inside and saying is this something i really want is this going to like bring me closer to the life i want is this the value i want like do i actually care about long term relationships or is it because i feel like i'm behind from my friends do i actually want children or do i just think i'm supposed to have them and therefore i need to have them with this person and i think that exploration might lead you to the same milestones but the way you get there will be from a place of healthy pain versus speeding through it and adding pressure and then things can get really confusing so i think like how do you know if you're wanting this relationship from a place of value is noticing how quickly you get triggered by other people's news social media whether.
- [20:29]
A
Somebody gets married somebody's getting engaged somebody's having a baby so what does that so when you get triggered how does that manifest and how does that show.
- [20:36]
B
Up it a shows up in your body immediately so you might feel tense like your jaw your shoulder then you start saying a story to yourself so your body then your thoughts if your automatic thought is i'm such a loser or my partner actually doesn't love me right because this thing hasn't happened like the quality of your automatic thoughts will tell you if it's coming from a place of shame fear or being behind or like a genuine desire and so pushing against toxic productivity whether in romance or at work is not to not be productive it's to get there at a healthier pace in a healthier way.
- [21:16]
A
You know i hit how to menopause the book hit the new york times and i was so excited by it and then i was like okay we gotta do what's the next thing we have to do and never never you know celebrated it never paid attention you know didn't say that was enough or that was okay i was on to the next already and i've noticed that as a pattern throughout my whole life and so that's why this was so interesting to me to understand the fact that it isn't about less it's about doing it and getting there in a healthy way and i didn't understand what the definition of a healthy a healthy way look like yeah when you have people come into you to talk to you how do you define whether or not somebody is burned out whether or not somebody is just working too much or maybe that's the same thing or they've they've gone into an area of being toxic in their productivity so toxic.
- [22:03]
B
Productivity is the mechanism through which we get to burnout so if you don't solve for it you are definitely going to get there and and you know it's like how connected is this person to the things that bring them joy that's why burnout can sometimes look like depression because the same idea of like not feeling joy anymore is like the common symptom between the two and that's also a big red flag of toxic productivity it just becomes super amplified when you're burnt out you know when i work with people who are struggling with this the pattern is i'm doing so much and it's never enough i've done all the things and nothing feels good enough and you know similar to something you said is like i got the best seller and it wasn't enough i suddenly was like where do i put my energy next and that's distinctly different than saying wow i met a goal and now where am i going to direct myself right which is it's like there's it's like i met the goal and it's enough or it's just not enough and i have to do something else to get that feeling i was.
- [23:09]
A
So excited like i'm so happy for a number of reasons but in particular the number of women that it helps.
- [23:16]
B
Congratulations thank you but it was really.
- [23:17]
A
The number of women that you know helped but then it was like what do i do with my energy it was less about that and more about what am i supposed to do now like i'm supposed to constantly feel this feeling of uncertainty frantic you know doing something next and i think that a lot of women in particular in midlife feel like that and whether that that's because you know kids have grown up whether they're dealing with you know perimenopause menopause whether they're dealing with reinvention do you notice that time in life bringing this more to the surface yeah i.
- [23:46]
B
Mean it brings it to the surface in like a very interesting and unique way because it intersects with like an identity transition you know midlife is like a place where we start questioning the decisions we've made did they serve us and do they serve us now and a lot of us are not doing it in this like methodical way we might just be like oh i don't like this anymore or i'm feeling very disconnected it's very like you know thoughts are very different but that's essentially the question we're answering is the things i used to do do they still serve me and because in this like hyper productive culture so much of our identity is around doing all the milestones have been met cause they've been done the question starts to feel like a void.
- [24:31]
A
Yeah and now what now what am.
- [24:33]
B
I supposed to do right and so then what happens is you just start throwing paint cause you want to do something you wanna feel useful you wanna feel connected you might be comparing yourself to your old self you know i find myself saying like wow like i used to not need this much sleep on a saturday night but now i like i need to sleep i could go two days without sleeping and being out and about but now that would like i would get sick right i'm.
- [25:00]
A
With you and so sometimes i compare.
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B
Myself to that past version of myself and i think in midlife a lot of women do that and then we set goals to achieve based on the old versions of ourselves so we're setting.
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A
Our goals at fifty to what we were able to accomplish do felt like we accomplished at twenty years old or.
- [25:16]
B
Even wanted or wanted and so you know to kind of like if productivity and the things you achieve are a core part of your identity that identity shift that happens in midlife requires you to write a new story and that means you have to actually take a step back which means you have to be unproductive for a little bit of time so that you can kind of let yourself imagine a new story for.
- [25:42]
A
Yourself what does that step back look like how do you step back and be unproductive without feeling shame disappointment and you know repeat the words i'm being.
- [25:52]
B
Lazy well one of the things is to create a regular habit of having free time for yourself now i can hear like a collective gasp i was.
- [26:02]
A
Just gonna say everyone's like tencent stop.
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B
It i know who is this woman get her off no but you know that habit is what's gonna allow you that psychological flexibility of sitting in nothingness.
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A
Okay so how do we sit in.
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B
Nothingness yeah we start very small we start super super small because people are busy especially for sandwich generation you don't have like forty minutes a day to be doing nothing absolutely not and that's not the recommendation either so start with five minutes in the morning where you're not reading anything you're not listening to you're not doing anything and you're also not planning anything in your head okay can you just sit by the window or at your table or like if you have a kitchen nook whatever or sit outside just for five minutes and just stare that's the first thing i mean can you remember the last time.
- [26:54]
A
You did that no but i was just telling somebody today before you came in i was sitting there and i thought i just gotta chill out for a little bit in december like once the holidays start and the last time i remember doing it was august and i brought a hardcover book with me me on vacation and i literally had to force myself every day to sit down and read the book you know it was like a fiction book so i wasn't necessarily learning something and that was my moment of doing nothing and that was doing something but no i don't remember any time i've done that.
- [27:25]
B
Just completely unstimulated time because if you think about it our brains are very overloaded right now because of the world like we're hyper stimulated then of course you've got like whatever's going on in the body anyway like at you know life transition spaces then you've got toxic productivity like hiding in the shadows telling you that you're you know shameful or you're whatever and so we're very overstimulated and we have to learn how to be unstimulated and five minutes a day if you can just commit to that for a whole month that will start shifting your ideas a little bit and it's an incremental change okay so wait.
- [28:01]
A
Five minutes so.
- [28:05]
We'Re all make a promise together so five minutes whatever time you get up in the morning drink your coffee tea whatever it is and sit by the window and just what.
- [28:13]
B
Do you think about let your thoughts come okay i need exact okay okay so it's like from the science of meditation they call it like the observer mind and so it's essentially like watching clouds come and go or if you're a little bit more concrete like watching cars on the highway like you don't wanna get stuck on one car and get into the you just like notice your thought it comes and it goes and it's like a practice okay so you're observing you're not engaging with your thoughts which kind of takes you out of planning mode okay and so that's like the first let's say the first thirty days what you're trying to build up to is the habit of being unstimulated on your own regularly i have.
- [28:54]
A
To imagine this would be really good for kids too because they're stimulated you know the minute they're born in this world that we're in honestly.
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All right so we're gonna do five minutes god willing and then what are we doing.
- [29:11]
B
Next and then you want to do something that i call the chanel rule which is once you start you say.
- [29:16]
A
Chanel rule yeah chanel like chanel coco.
- [29:19]
B
Chanel okay so let me tell you so coco chanel was very famous to have said that when you are leaving your house take off one piece of accessory yes because in the vacuum of your bathroom or your vanity you put on a lot of and you don't really understand the context you're gonna be in right so i love that you.
- [29:35]
A
Know that cause i've known that for a long time and i'm glad you're putting it into play here yeah you.
- [29:39]
B
Know she's an underrated woman complicated yes but underrated for the time she lived in but so what i did is like i took this to my own calendar i tend to overbook and overdo and over commit without looking at the context of my life in that week i'm just saying yes you're saying something to me i'm saying yes i'm slotting it in and so the chanel rule is taking one thing off your calendar week after week oh okay i like that so you're under committing instead of over committing and so once you get in the habit of sitting with yourself for five minutes a day then you build a habit of taking something off your calendar you will then build the habit of spending that free time on.
- [30:21]
A
Your own now i'm imagining there are a lot of people listening going hey i'd love to take something off my calendar but there's nothing i can take off because between picking up kids or making dinner or i have family coming into town so where do you go to look for that so i like.
- [30:36]
B
To do like audits and so i call this the time energy audit where you list down the last three weeks of everything you've done every single thing work personal life romantic friendship children physical stuff right and then write a column and ask yourself okay how did i feel before i did this this how did i feel after very important then ask yourself three questions did i have to do this yeah did i have to do it when i did it okay yep right and what would have happened if i didn't do it those are great questions right what would have happened if i didn't do it fully.
- [31:12]
A
So tell me it again yeah so.
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B
Did i have to do it me.
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A
Being i have to die physical could i had my partner my child my.
- [31:20]
B
Mom okay yeah did i have to do it the time i did it sometimes i have this like urgency i gotta do something and then i'm like wow this could have waited till next week oh my gosh it would've eased my week a little bit and the last one is you know what would have happened if i didn't do it fully like if i gave it my twenty percent if i just didn't do it at all and when i did this before writing the book actually as part of my journaling i realized that i was actually committing to a lot of things that were not making me feel good before and after and i was doing a lot of things that i could have asked my partner to do but i was locked in that should and there were many things that i actually just took off and the world didn't end and so you wanna do this like seasonally there are some seasons that are very like holidays are a very packed season for people summers for people who have kids are very packed right and so seasonally you can adjust but sometimes you might have these legacy things on your couc calendar a thing you volunteered for like three months ago but it's not serving you anymore a committee you're on at work but like do you have to right they're.
- [32:30]
A
Expectations of yourself of yourself do your.
- [32:33]
B
Kids have to be in four after school activities can they be in two right can you actually maybe get store bought cupcakes instead of bake them yourself like it's all of these things and we all do it like when i have dinner parties at home i put so much pressure on myself to just make everything myself and it's like i'm not even like.
- [32:54]
I can tell you.
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A
How to release that good yeah i.
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B
Mean i enjoy cooking but it's like do i have can i not just buy the bag of chips right like and it's these little ways that we are draining our energy and up top we're like oh my gosh i have no time i have no energy and so it's like that.
- [33:14]
A
Okay tam fam you know that sleep is my number one priority i mean it it is the thing i focus on all the time and trust me when my sleep is off everybody feels it everybody in my life so i have to share what i've been using because it's made such a difference for me it's called the eight sleep pod five it's a smart mattress cover that goes right on top of your existing bed it's designed to help you sleep deeper and wake up feeling more restored and what i noticed first was how it regulates my temperature temperature all through the night i like it cool aira likes it warm and somehow we both get exactly what we want the pod learns your sleep patterns and adjusts automatically so you're not waking up to throw the blankets on and off your leg back and forth you know what i'm talking about if you know you know then there's the data when i wake up i can see how i slept sleep stages heart rate breathing all of it this holiday season eight sleep is extending their biggest sale of their year use my code tamsen at eightsleep dot com tamsen for up to four hundred dollars off the pod five you even get thirty days to try it risk free plus eight sleep products are now fsa and hsa eligible financing options such as a firm.
- [34:25]
C
Are now available it's that time of year again when you start arranging pumpkins on the stoop try out a new cranberry sauce recipe and plan out a tablescape that'll outdo last year in other words it's when you break out all your diy holiday skills and now adt is making it easy to diy your home security too their systems aren't just simple to set up they also fit within your budget so get excited for your next project because your peace of mind just went diy visit adt dot com or call one eight hundred adt asap when every second counts count on adt.
- [35:08]
A
What does it look like so those are two habits and tools i think that are really important are there any other ones that you think if someone's listening right now and says okay i'd like to put those two into practice in the next two months is there a third tool that would be a good one to add to that.
- [35:22]
B
A third one this is also gonna get a collective gasp.
- [35:26]
It'S called to embrace mediocrity in your life okay that.
- [35:30]
A
Is gonna get a gasp abstract concept.
- [35:32]
B
But in reality what it means is assess of your life need the best version of you and which parts will survive with the good enough version of you or the thing that you do and before you commit to anything decide is this the thing i'm going to be the best at or can i give it a little bit of like a half effort and it's still okay.
- [35:55]
A
And save that complete effort for something else yes it's just it's great and i think it's i think this is like the perfect time because we just feel like like everything's moving i don't know about you but i feel like everything's moving faster every day i wake up there's more to know more to do to where you finally just go i just give up you know and you don't want to be you don't want to be in that place yeah.
- [36:14]
B
And you know what you know research shows right now that our like attention span is at forty seven seconds which is down from like a few minutes that people can stay focused on something so our brain is that's unbelievable forty seven seconds is very low i actually.
- [36:30]
A
Think it sounds like a lot that's.
- [36:33]
B
True like when you're trying to watch a video what are you holding forty.
- [36:36]
A
Seven seconds is a lifetime but that's.
- [36:39]
B
The thing right like we used to be able to pay attention for three minutes at a time in the two thousands and now we can't do that and that is because we're so like in demand like things are constantly being asked of us sure and so that's why you know having some unstimulated time really assessing where you're putting your energy and then choosing to give your one hundred percent where it matters is so.
- [37:02]
A
Important so you said this earlier you said you realized that if you didn't do something the world wasn't gonna end but it took you a long time to realize that so what do you tell a woman that is listening there today that is worried that if she doesn't get something done or accomplished or handled that the world's not gonna end.
- [37:19]
B
I think that the fear is that it won't happen the way i need it to or you know and that there is a truth that sometimes if a woman is not doing the thing it won't happen however however if you're somebody who's struggling with this what i would recommend is try to pull back in the smallest way in the safest relationship because the thing that we have to get better at is sitting with that discomfort like for me it was very uncomfortable for me to like not do the thing because i felt like the world was gonna end right yeah and so that discomfort needs to we need to learn how to tolerate it and we can do that by exposing ourselves to to it so if you have a friend that you can practice this with and just kind of don't make the dinner reservation let them just you know in the group chat if you're the first person who's like oh i got the spot in the village right just don't do it and see what happens that's the safest environment it's a group of friends it's a dinner the stakes are very low right you.
- [38:20]
A
Don'T feel like you're going to get the blame or yeah because be the cause of something not working exactly and.
- [38:25]
B
So like in these small areas like look in your life where it can really help you and just practice it once you practice it and you see that oh the world didn't end we ended up having a dinner maybe it wasn't like very well organized but we got together we had a conversation all of those things happened we connected and so that will start building that muscle and then you can actually bump it up a little bit more to something that's a little bit more high stakes maybe in your relationship maybe with your children right and then you bump it even more a little bit and that slowly gives you more agency okay that's the biggest thing i realized is when we live in the fear that if i don't do it everything's gonna fall apart what really is happening at like a deeper psychological level is we feel like we don't have any other choice yeah we are disempowered yeah and that creates so much resentment in relationships and so by practicing this slowly not only are you doing yourself a service you're doing your relationship like you know a.
- [39:22]
A
Service as well i think it leads me to this question which i think is like the big question for me i have a really difficult time saying no like next level no i'd rather inconvenience myself make myself miserable going into it and coming out of it than saying no and i think that there are a lot of people that feel like that is there a script that you can give us to help us say no more maybe in twenty twenty six but to say it and say it in a kind way and say it in a way where we don't regret that we've done that over and.
- [39:54]
B
Over again in our minds yeah so i dive into this a lot in a lot of my work including the book but outside of it as well as to why people struggle with saying no and the reasons are like whether or not you feel awkward with somebody for what they've asked or whatever the truest reason someone struggles to say no is they can't tolerate the discomfort of disappointing someone of letting someone down of making someone angry or making someone uncomfortable so the first step is like learning how to just tolerate discomfort but a.
- [40:24]
A
Script how do you learn how to tolerate discomfort oh yeah do it enough.
- [40:29]
B
I mean that's one way to do it for sure but also just you know again you want to start with safe relationships you want to you know say to them i had a friend who would say to me this is something i'm practicing with my therapist so i'm going to say no to you more to the therapist no to me as a friend oh okay i was a safe person for her and she she would just practice saying no when i offered recommendations for restaurants or parties or whatever and it slowly made her comfortable enough to say to other people wow okay and how do you tolerate discomfort you breathe through it that's the simplest way to do it you label it in your head you take a breath and then you shift your energy by doing something like you move you get up you wash your face you leave the room things like that but if you have issues with saying no then the most helpful way i found is to first take the pause someone has asked you for something take a pause and ask for time so that's the delay piece of it so hey.
- [41:24]
A
Take a deep breath ezra do you wanna go to dinner tonight you wanna go grab drinks after this okay.
- [41:30]
B
Tamsin let me get back to you in twenty minutes right okay that takes the pressure off of me to think about how i should say no then then the formula is you thank the person for thinking of you because you don't want no's to burn bridges right then you can offer either a direct decline or you can offer an alternative that still keeps the connection or you can support them in getting that request elsewhere okay so there's three choices yes so i could say tamsin thanks for the offer for drinks i'm not able to take today that's one clear not an.
- [42:08]
A
Explanation not a reason why okay second.
- [42:11]
B
Is thanks i'm not able to date how is next week right third is i'm not able to but one of my girlfriends is free right now if you're looking to meet someone new right so there's a way to kind of like soften the edge protect your energy and also protect the relationship you know.
- [42:29]
A
You do a really incredible job in your book of turning shame into curiosity can we talk a little bit about what that looks like in real life.
- [42:37]
B
Life so shame is a statement and so you might hear it as a statement to yourself you're lazy you're such a loser how could you mess this up like that's a rhetorical question that's a statement there's never to yourself to yourself this is how shame shows up for us and you know the way to kind of shift that is to transform that statement into a question that you would ask someone else so if your thought is is you messed up the presentation right if you think about how you would phrase this as a question to someone else it might be what do you think went wrong or where could it have been better and how could we actually change this for the future those are all questions that are getting to the same thing which is you want to improve at your.
- [43:24]
A
Presentation right more solution oriented solution oriented.
- [43:28]
B
In like very tactical things but if it's like an emotional thing that you're feeling shameful about like maybe it's around like a friendship or a romantic relationship it doesn't need to give you a solution but it needs to ask a question that can help you expand the way you're looking at things because a shame based statement is a closed statement it's very black and white and it feels immovable i'm lazy period right but if you transform it into a question it allows you to actually access different parts of the story so you can make changes if you want oh my.
- [44:03]
A
Gosh there's so many things i've learned today i hope that i wanna put it all make sure it's all in the show notes too so it's so much easier for everybody the book is toxic productivity what does healthy productivity look.
- [44:14]
B
Like healthy productivity does not think rest is a reward in healthy productivity rest is a requirement that's number one number two healthy productivity is very much aligned with your values so you're not just doing things cause you're comparing yourself to other people or you're not doing things and then trying to back fit them into your values any decision you make at the forefront you know that it's moving the needle forward to the life you want which is the life you truly want not because you saw someone's christmas card and healthy productivity also has end points so we say to ourselves okay you know what this season i'm working on this this and this and when i meet that that's good enough we are done and then i'll restart a different project at a later time.
- [45:01]
A
So we should give ourself those end points points yes but not to achieve those check them off and go to the next thing to achieve them appreciate them and then decide what else we're.
- [45:10]
B
Going to do exactly and when you make those decisions make sure you ask yourself do i really want to do this do i want to do this right now and what would happen if i didn't do it how do you.
- [45:21]
A
Help people celebrate their wins when they get to that point versus checking it off the list and trying to find.
- [45:27]
B
The next one the first thing is to name name it you know name it and i think having accountability partners is really important and so if you have one person who you can actually say it out loud to and they can mirror it back to you that's a really important way of like plugging in so you know our brains we have these neurons that are kind of like ish right here i think they're called mirror neurons and they essentially mirror what the other person is saying in front of you that's why emotions are contagious that's why babies laugh if you smile at them that's what's working mirror neurons mirror neurons yeah and so we should leverage that as adults and so being with somebody who can help you remember that your wins matter it kind of mirrors it back to you okay so if you struggle with that i think having an accountability partner is very helpful so like naming it to yourself having someone name it to you and then also assigning like a like a like a like a treat but it doesn't have to be like something you purchase it can be anything can it.
- [46:27]
A
Be champagne for sure it could be.
- [46:31]
B
Champagne it could be i just said it was okay it could be things you buy of course you know treat yourself but something that's like a positive reinforcer to actually getting the win and that's just how our brain is wired what we're not get when we immediately jump to the next thing what we don't get is that valid like positive reinforcement that validation that dopamine and so we're like still searching for it so we're like oh let me go get the next book or the next whatever right if you actually give yourself that your brain will feel satisfied what are.
- [47:02]
A
Some examples of that i mean champagne i'm joking around but what's that i.
- [47:05]
B
Mean that could be could be something that is joyful right so it could be like letting yourself take a day off okay and really just appreciating the journey that you took doing like a retrospective and like looking at all the things that you worked on and like doing like a little bit of like memory lane is always really nice nice another thing that you can do is you can actually write positive reinforcement to your and that actually feels really good and so if you write like letters to your past self or your future self is like a really helpful exercise in giving yourself that dopamine boost right i like that i think that you know sometimes it is nice to reward yourself with things like i can't take that off the table yeah but that can't be why we do it but it is nice to do that yeah something simple as like even buying yourself a fresh bouquet of flowers for like ten bucks and making a nice arrangement putting some music on and really appreciating the moment that you're in all the.
- [48:01]
A
Things we do for other people i think right like people come over we put music on we make sure there's flowers we want to cook for them so yeah we forget about ourselves in the process all right so i know there are women that are listening maybe there's a woman that is exhausted still convinced that she has not done enough for the woman that feels like she just hasn't done enough what do you want her to believe about her i.
- [48:24]
B
Want her to believe that she absolutely has done more than enough because there is no way that you're a woman today in today's world where you haven't done enough whether it's taking care of your romantic relationships your partners your children your workers co workers friends yourself like we are all doing a lot you know so what i want her to believe is that she has done enough but what i want her to like i want to invite her to look back and actually pick three things this year that she was thinking about last year you know and it happened because and it doesn't have to be work related it can be you know i saw my friends more i you know baked breakfast bars every week and so i had a healthy breakfast every week right like these things matter i took all of my supplements that i wasn't taking last year i went to all of my doctor's appointments that i didn't go to last year those are all important things so be reflective and take a moment to think think about the things that you have done and that will help you going into like a new season with self mastery which is the concept of knowing that you can do the things that you commit to.
- [49:36]
A
Doing that's right you're such a pleasure thank you so much thank you for having me i'm so glad we did this today yeah you know what i really hope that something in today's conversation landed for you i think you're just brilliant and i'm so appreciative of all these scripts that you gave us if something did land i have one piece of homework for all of us five minutes of nothingness oh this is hard for me to say no phone report back though and tell me how you feel and we'll look for those comments right yeah if you're enjoying the show leaving a review wherever you're listening truly helps us grow and reach more people than ever questions or if you need advice email us podcast at the tamsen show or you can call or text our hotline now nine one seven three eight two four two seven seven we're real excited about getting that going and thanks for being with us and i'll see time you next in the next episode today's podcast is sponsored by midi health so many of you know this but i was dismissed over and over again when i was struggling with perimenopause symptoms i didn't even know i was in perimenopause it is so important you're getting care from someone that specializes in women in midlife and that they're willing to have the hormone therapy conversation with you i get questions from you every single day about where to go for support and i'm always suggesting midi health it's covered by insurance insurance and you don't even have to leave your house ready to feel your best and write your second act script visit joinmitty dot com tamsen today to book your personalized insurance covered virtual visit that's joinmitty dot com tamsen midi the care women deserve.
- [51:15]
C
Tonight'S the first date that's been weeks in the making hair done nails done.
- [51:21]
A
Every square inch of your body exfoliated.
- [51:24]
C
Then you see it a pesky pimple the size of a respectable mountain the.
- [51:29]
B
Good news mighty patch pimple patches can absorb gunk in just six hours patch the problem area and shrink the look of whiteheads faster than your makeup skills.
- [51:38]
C
Could anyway shop mighty patch at all major retailers.