But to be a victim, which means stay in that role of I have absolutely no power over my life. That's a choice. Over time that becomes a choice.
Hello and welcome to another episode with uplift for her, I'm your host. Dr Mallorie Cracroft, I'm a board certified OB GYN and integrative women's health specialist, and we are here to talk about all things women's health and how we can live our healthiest and best lives. So today, that means talking a little bit about aging and sorting out the issues and complexities that come up as we age, especially as women, because it's really an under-discussed topic, and we have a wonderful guest with us. It's our very own Monet Cash. Hi, Monet.
Hi. How are you?
Good. Thank you.
Monet is one of our therapists here at Uplift For Her, so we get our own personal expert to talk about this really important topic. So thanks again for coming.
You're welcome. It's good to be here. Thank you for having me.
Yes, I'm just going to read a little bit about you. You, Monet, have been a therapist for 25 years, and have really become passionate about finding calmness and the chaos and that mind body connection. Your expertise is in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which is a modality of talk therapy that teaches ways to control uncomfortable emotions so the emotion doesn't control you. She teaches an effective three step model on the very first visit that helps to decrease anxiety immediately. So we really are grateful to have you here. Thanks for taking the time. Will you tell us? Let's just start by hearing a little bit about you and how you came to be a therapist, but also your unique sort of brand of therapy, which I think is very much focused on this mindbody connection.
Yeah. So I remember when I was a new mom, back in my 20s, going to a presentation one night, and the speaker was an LCSW, and she was speaking primarily to women. And she was talking about this probably, I would say, in the early 90s. She was talking about a lot of research that had been done in Utah on women, and there was a higher rate of depression with Utah women than in other parts of the country. I was really fascinated by that, and just went up and talked to her afterwards, and very impressed by her speech, she empowered me. Just as a new mom, I was feeling a little blue. I'd had two kids in two years. I was a student as well, trying to get my degree and finish my degree at the University of Utah at the time, and I can remember just feeling so connected to her as she spoke, and the impact she had on me, I thought that's what I want to do, you know, I would like to be the person that empowers other people, inspires other people, and she was just so relatable. And so that was kind of where I got my spark, you know, I was just thinking, how can I add one more thing to my list now that's grad school, and I've got two little babies at home, and but she just, you know, I'll never forget her. Never seen her since her name was Heidi Sontag, and she just was an amazing speaker and inspired me. And that's how I got my start in psychotherapy. And I wanted to do specifically clinical work, the therapy side of it, and just empower other women you know, who are going through what I was and again, that was in my 20s. Now I'm in my 50s, and I'm so grateful that I have this professional knowledge to draw on for my personal life as well.
How do you feel like your career has changed to incorporate more of this mindbody connection? I think therapists definitely learn the importance of the mind body connection, but I think some of them sort of grab onto it a little more than others. I think some of them really focus on more of the thought work, and you've really made it your practice to focus on, how do we incorporate the cues of the body into the thought work, and how do we use the thought work to help heal the body. Will you tell us a little bit about that? Yes,
and I'm so glad you brought that up, because in grad school, especially in psychology, they do emphasize the mind. You know, probably the most popular modality is CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is, you know, the brain and the behavior. But it kind of skips that physiological piece, it skips that spiritual piece. And so, like they say, your message, your message for me later on in life, when things started to happen to me and I experienced my own personal probably over the last 10 years, I would say my modality and my emphasis has really changed to focus more on the connection and the integration of body and mind. You know, I've dealt with grief myself. I lost my first husband. He passed away after summiting Mount Everest in 2019 and this six months earlier, I'd lost my mom. She had passed away from health obesity related. Health, health issues, and then six months after my husband passed away, you know, we had a traumatic event that happened to my granddaughter. So there was just all of this messiness, right? And I'm not unique. Other people have loss, everybody. I mean, you can't, you can't avoid grief. There's some kind of loss, whether it's divorce or losing a child or whatever, there's different forms of grief, right? But I decided, you know, and not right away. It took some time but to make my mess my message. And the message for me was that there is no help without mental health, and you really do have to pay attention to that physiological aspect for me, I lost sleep. I had horrible insomnia. As you know, if you don't have sleep, that affects everything. Bobby likes sleep as it brings out the biggest deal to me now, yeah. So, yeah. I mean, it regulates everything, right? And so I remember signing up for yearly yoga retreats, just for me. And I just thought, the healer needs to heal, right? And I believe that everybody heals themselves. I'm not the healer technically, but I just thought, you know, if I'm going to be effective in this work, I really need to do my own work and take time for myself and have that self awareness so that my body can be in the best possible shape. My mind can be sharp so that I can impact others. And so the yearly and I still do that. I do yearly retreats, usually in January, because, you know, Utah is not my favorite in January, even though I'm a skier, I haven't been up for a while. So I will go, you know, Mexico, or wherever I actually went to India, Rishikesh India in 2018 and did a deep dive into Eastern philosophy, and I love to integrate that with Western philosophies. So that's kind of like, I don't know if that answered your question, but I just think, you know, there's so much that the Western culture is missing in terms of some of the Eastern philosophies that teach about the body you know, and how the two integrate, and how you work with both of them, and that holistic approach, right?
Yep, absolutely.
I love hearing your story. It's such a good it's such a wonderful story. So I love hearing the details of it. I think what it actually leads really well into what we're talking about, because this happened to you at the time of life, that it's actually a pretty it can be a pretty tumultuous time in a woman's life. Yeah, I think the things that you described when I have seen taking care of women my entire career, and from about the mid 40s to about the 60s, there's this transition where I think it's actually the biggest life transition we talk about, like puberty and having babies, and I think this is actually a bigger life transition, because physically it's massive, but socially it's so intense, the changes that go on in this age group, oftentimes our own health is starting to change. Menopause can wreak havoc on our bodies and how we feel and how we even think and perceive the world. It messes with sleep. It causes all of these issues. So we just the physical change that we go through in that late 40s to 50s is big, but then you add to that the social changes of oftentimes parent one's parents are starting to age and have different needs, and you're starting to be more in touch with mortality of the people around you. I think usually, as people get into their 50s, they they may have one or two or five friends who may be dealing with their own mortality, of cancer passing away, or things like that. Marriage, there's a lot of upheaval in marriage around this time, sometimes divorce, sometimes death, but also sometimes just this redefining of what is my marriage. Now, you know, we were married when we had and then we had little kids, and we've been parenting together and dealing with life, and now it's just us like, who
are we and what are we, and what do we want to be as a couple?
I think a lot of women also who have children around this time, their children are going through this massive life transition, and the role as a mother is starting to change. So number one, just a shout out to those who are going through this. I don't think we talk about it nearly enough how big this transition is.
I totally agree, yeah, and that is, I love that you're focusing on that because you were talking about the type of patients that you see and I also see, I mean, if I wish I had gathered data, right, and I had some record of the age group that I saw the most, but I would guess it probably would be, you know, between those ages 40 to 60, where people seek help teenagers. You know, parents of teens, that usually brings people in. And oftentimes people will say, fix my team. Yeah, right. And, oh, by the way, I need help too, I know. And so that can be a challenge too. And, and then, like you said, just their own personal identity is in question. Their purpose is in question. And especially full time moms, you like me, have always had a career, right? And so I have found that helpful in that I do have something else that hides me, yeah, and, and it was still hard, you know, still with the transitions and the changes. I remember when my youngest left home, and I just felt such a deep loss, and I thought, this seems so silly, because I've got a thriving career, I've got friends, I've got my own life, you know? Why is this impacting me so much? But yeah, my my purpose was in question. You know, this is for me. Being a mom was something that I valued deeply, and I now know now that everybody's an adult. All four of my children are an adult, and all of them are married. It never stops. So you're always a mom, you're just, I don't know, you have less, less control. Maybe different.
Yeah, it's just different. Well, I want to dive into that. Let's, let's back up and set a little stage for that. So I want to spend some time going through some of those main issues that come up with you, for you with clients, because they're the same issues that people bring up for me, I think one of the things that happens if we sort of just just think about the lifespan of a woman, there's the adolescents, where we're trying to figure out who we are as humans and how this world is supposed to work, and I'm supposed to take charge, but also my parents are telling me to do things a certain way, but I feel like I'm supposed to take charge. So we have this adolescence for a lot of people. Then the 20s are spent with even more deeper self discovery of career and and relationships and social connections, and some people will start having children around that time, maybe get married, have a career into the 30s a little bit more of the same self discovery and parenting, if you're a parent and dealing with those things. I think that the 20s and 30s tend to be really, really busy, and I think a lot of women are just, I call it duct tape together. It's like, let's put a little more duct tape over this part of my life to just hold it together, because I don't have time to actually fix it right now, so we're just gonna keep it survival mode. Yeah,
exactly.
So you get through these 20s and 30s and maybe into the 40s, and then sometimes into the 40s and the 50s, I do feel like there's this big opportunity for women, either in crisis saying, like I've duct taped it together long enough it won't work anymore, like Something's gotta change, or this opportunity, which is my favorite thing, when people come and say, I demand something different, like I want something different of my health, of my life, of my mood, I want something different for myself. So this makes this time transition so critical. So I'm inviting all listeners who are in this category, in this age group, but also anyone who will go through this age group, which is everyone, which is, I think this will be, yeah, I think this will be a really good conversation. So will you start by first setting the stage for how does our childhood and even our adolescents, how do those life experiences start to shape our brain and our body in ways that then we're dealing with throughout our lives, but especially coming to a crux in our 40s and 50s. Does that make sense? Because I think if we lay that foundation the work we're doing in our 40s and 50s, how that? How that? How important that becomes?
Sure. Yeah. So the old question of nature, nurture, right? Yes. So if you think about your upbringing, we all have a varied upbringing. One of the things that I like to share with my my clients, is that we're born with our temperaments, yes. And so some of us are just hardwired to be a little bit more dramatic. We feel emotional more intensely than others. We're more expressive than others. I'm a person that's a little more calm. I was born with that temperament, um, I'm more the expressive one. Yes, exactly. And again, not good or bad, just different, right? Yeah. And so number one, acknowledging the biology piece, but then the shaping you mentioned of your environment, peace and those both are very, very important to acknowledge in terms of how we get to where we're at, you know, in our 40s, 50s, and so I love that you went back that far. So then we have the parenting styles. And usually, if there's two parents in the household, they're not the same style. So there's usually one that's more strict, there's another one that's more lenient, and the child's just kind of going, Okay, who do I go to for this? Who would I go to for that? They're very smart, right? And so our environment shapes us and kind of teaches us certain attachment styles. How do we attach to mom? You know? How do we see mom and dad make friendships? What do we see in the relationship there? And that sets a lot of the foundation for what we do in the future. So as we hit adolescents, we tend to choose people either that can compensate for something that we did not have in our environmental upbringing, or we choose the exact opposite. And I remember my mom, she was this. This neat freak. And I can remember when I hit adolescence, I thought, I'm going to be really messy. And I just, I don't want to be like that. She's uptight all the time, you know, when you get home from school and she would she wouldn't say, how was your day? She would say, take off your shoes. You're tracking in mud. And so I just kind of went the opposite direction, and thought, I'm going to be messy, you know, and and that's what you do in adolescence. You're trying on different hats. You don't really know fully who you are. You're still development, developing, and so that independence is exactly what you're supposed to be doing when you're 12, 1314, and I think that parents feel that their teen is pulling away from them rather than recognizing that's exactly what they're supposed to be doing developmentally. They're also supposed to be getting their own belief system. They may be going off of yours, whether it's a religious belief or whatever principles we're taught in the home, they need to find for out for themselves what their own beliefs are. And so sometimes they can challenge certain norms in the home, right? And so again, a parent will feel like they're losing that teen, when, in fact, the teen is just developing their own set of standards, their own set of, you know, independent, independence, and they're not necessarily pulling away from the family. You're supposed to be social. You're supposed to be going places with your friends. You know, you rather spend time with your friends and your family when you're a teenager. So, so all of that, right? And then fast forward that into I guess, you know, if you like you said, 20s are very busy. Whatever you're doing, establishing a career, choosing a mate, getting your education, so much busyness. I agree with you. I think that there's not a lot of thoughtful moments where you're slowing down and paying attention to your intuitive self, I think you are just going through the motions and doing what you need to do. And there is a delayed crisis, if you will. Midlife crisis is kind of a real thing.
I think also in those 20s, there's also such an emphasis on proactive creation, right? Like decide who to marry, decide what career, decide if you want to have kids, decide where you want to live, decide if you want to live with your parents or away from your parents. It's a It's we're supposed to be choosing. We're supposed to be introspective and deciding who do I want to be and how do I want to be? And I think it's, it's great in our 20s, and we have all sorts of reminders that force us to do that, because you have to decide what job you have. And so I think the 20s, it's a different type of thought work that automatically, just inherently comes as that thought work in that stage is inherently introspective and and proactive, of who do I want to be when you get to your 40s and 50s, it's there's not a lot of reminders that that should be our effort. But I really feel like it is, I mean, that that work needs to be done. I just don't think we talk about it enough. We're now in our 40s or our 50s, and your career has been chosen. Your spouse has been chosen. Your kids are doing whatever they want to do, and you have no control over it. I think we lose touch of even the ability to be proactive. We just feel like we're just caught in the current a little bit. And I guess now this is my life, and that can feel really bad. So I think that's another part of the the situation that can play into the issues that arise in our 40s and 50s is we feel swept up in the current, and we can often feel like we don't have any choice, and we can often feel a little out of control or a little victimized, right?
Yeah, in psychology, they use the word estrangement or depersonalization. So there is this pull away from the sense of self, there's this estrangement of who am I, and that identity is really challenged, yeah, and so it kind of sounds like that's what you're talking about. And how do people get out of that current and get stabilized, right? And get grounding underneath them, and get a little bit more intentional with their lives, right? And at the same time, feeling like life has gone by and maybe they don't have as many choices as they did in their 20s, right? And being okay with where they're at, yeah, yeah, or not, or not, exactly, and making change and taking action and having the confidence to do that. Okay, let
me connect these dots and then come back and dive into that, because this is it's really important. So when you talked about childhood, I think that there's this stereotypical experience with a therapist, right? Where the person lays on the couch and the therapist is like, tell me about your mom, and then by the end of the therapy session, you're blaming your mom for all your problems, right, like she's the reason. And that's not at all. I think a lot of people actually resist therapy because of that, because they don't want to go back to the past, or I have a lot of patients who have said I talked to a therapist, they just wanted to focus on my past. I still don't know how to deal with tomorrow, you know. So I don't want to dwell on the past, but I do feel like there's really great breadcrumbs to help us understand ourselves by by understanding what. What issues came up for us in the past and the way that we were parented. So if we were parented in a way that was very controlling then, and that that may be as a child, what felt very safe to us, we might have, may not have liked it, right, but it still may represent safety, right? And if something represents safety, we're gonna keep that mechanism unless, unless we do something to change it. So oftentimes, when we see these default programs in our 40s and 50s, we can look back to our childhood, not with the intent to blame our parents, because Heaven knows they're all doing, you know, we're all kind of doing the best we can and information we have. And we had parents that were flawed, and they had parents that were flawed and parents. We're all just doing our best. So I don't think there's a lot of space for blaming our parents, but I do think there can be some really great insight of, like, oh, that's why I do that. That's why I respond this way. This is something I've done in therapy, which I'm proud of. Like, I normalize therapy, right? One of the things that I've done in therapy is looking at some of my childhood events that didn't even seem like a big deal at the time, but recognizing, oh, that one event, there's one event that happened for me that is like not a big deal at all, that I just realized was cemented in this idea of myself as a caretaker that someone put on me is, if you don't do that, then this person will suffer. And it has run deep, right? I'm a doctor. If I if I'm perfect, then other people won't suffer. And you can imagine that served me really well in some ways, and caused all sorts of big issues in other ways, as as I've had these control issues, of like, as long as I control myself and everything around me perfectly, then no one will suffer, right? So there's some that too, too much insight into my life, but, but I use that as an example of that can be really helpful for me to recognize what tools am I using that feel like safety, but are causing me problems that came from childhood, or the way that we were raised, or experiences we had as children? Not so we go back and can say like they shouldn't have done that to me, but more so so we can say like I'm empowered. I can see now that in my current life, I'm exerting too much control, and it's causing problems, and it's going to feel really uncomfortable for me to let go of that control. It's going to feel uncomfortable to not control my husband, or to not control my children or or at other relationships in my life. But I now understand that that that unsafe feeling is because it's just a learned thing that I had as a kid. It felt safe as a kid, right? So I can let go and be a little uncomfortable with that and relearn a new coping mechanism. So that was a long roundabout way, but I want to understand, and I want your insight on that. I want people to understand that as we get deep into our adulthood and our midlife, that understanding those safety cues as a child really make a lot of sense of why our bodies and our brains are responding a certain way. Do you have any thoughts about that?
One of the things that I say to people when they come into therapy, and like you said, there's that stigma still, we're getting rid of that a little bit, and I love that you're open and willing to share what you've discovered about yourself. I think we need more of that. But there's a sense that there's some pathology. You know, if they're coming to therapy, it's because of some some sort of pathology broken, yeah. And so, you know, I buy what I sell. I also have done my own work. I've been in therapy, I've been in couples therapy, I've done all of the things as well. And I tell people, it's nothing more than education, right? And for me and my clients, one of the things we do is three different things. The first one we do is just self awareness, which you've expressed you got like things that seemed insignificant, you realize, okay, that was significant. And then the second one is skill building, so now that we have this awareness of that event that has kind of formed our relationships and why we need that control, right safety, what are some skills that we can do to manage that knowledge with the emotion? Because a lot of times people get thoughts and feelings mixed up. I will ask them, How do you feel about that, or what you think about that, and they oftentimes don't know the difference between thoughts and feelings, and so giving them tools to manage that intellect piece, right? I have this knowledge, but I also feel slighted, or I feel cheated, or I feel sadness that maybe I've lost some of my childhood. Or, you know, whatever the feeling is, how do you balance that out and have both? Because you need both. You need the rational mind, but you also need Emotion. Emotion is what makes life wonderful, and also sadness, right? There's that law of polarity where you have both, and then the last step is implementation. So. Have self awareness, and then we have skill building, and then we have implementation. And the implementation, I tell my clients, I can't do that for you, yeah. And so a lot of times, people will say, Well, I think that, you know, I probably need to come in and see you every week, and I say, actually, the magic is in practice, in the practice of these skills and the knowledge that you've gathered. So a lot of self reflection, journaling, whatever your thing is, whatever your modality is for processing emotion, I can't do that for them, and so I'm a therapist that actually believes less visits is more effective. There's some colleagues that would disagree with me, but I try to do my work in 12 sessions or less. I feel like, if you're in therapy for five years with the same person, something's not working, either that motivation piece is missing, or the therapist maybe is not using the right modality for that person. It needs to be customized. So those are, like, the three things that I think help balance all of that out and help bring clarity. Because also, as I hear you talk, it just sounds like there's so much confusion, right? I have this knowledge. I know why I do what I do, and remember that, you know, knowledge is not motivation, right? Like we have so much information right now, and a lot of confused people, a lot of lonely people, a lot of people who are isolating. And I personally think what brings motivation is pain, sadly, but for myself, that's really what motivates me to take action. Is when I'm hurting enough, then I will actually take action. That's just me, but for a lot of people, they do, and maybe in their 40s, 50s, there's some sort of lost transition, questioning going on, right marital or whatever, that brings them to that point of questioning and wow, things are not the same, or I had envisioned them differently. There's a book called The Road Less Traveled. It's very old, by Scott Peck, and he actually says that most mental illness is caused by our resistance to change. And I really see that in my work, where we have this idea of exactly what 50 looks like, or 55 our bodies, you know, our body image, the way we look, the way we feel, all of those different things that you mentioned, the culture, right? But also our spiritual selves, our physical selves. And when that doesn't happen, that creates a lot of angst within us, and that's when we get stuck. That's sometimes when depression sets in, or we freeze, and that's anxiety. So as far as like past and how to deal with that and navigate that and not let it overcome and be too much of our present life, one question I ask in therapy is, what from your past is occurring in your present life. Because if it's something in the past and it's not replaying, it's been dealt with, we don't need to rehash that, right? But if there's something that's coming up again and again, like you said, maybe the control, like this need to control other people, or this lack of acceptance or lack of tolerance for other people, you know, that's something internal that we need to address. And if it's playing out in your present day life, then it does need to be addressed. Yeah, you know, we don't need to, like, go back and do a timeline of zero to five and five to 10. You know, that's just not effective. But
why are you seeking that safety mechanism, exactly? And
and so that can be a really powerful question, and sometimes people will just look at me and think, you know, that is interesting. This is playing out presently, even though it happened years ago, and so it's not about rehashing the past. It's about finding tools to effectively manage what's occurring in your daily life right now. That's
right. That's right.
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that's that's such a great question. So one of the things I'd like to define is that the word acceptance is not liking Yes. So in order for us to gain, want
you to say that one more time, because that's actually really, really big, and we're gonna go in it is we're gonna dive into the for those who are parents of older children, we're gonna dive into that. And so say it again, yes.
So accepting something is not necessarily liking something. Yeah, right. There's a difference. And so oftentimes part of that resistance to change, the opposite of that would be acceptance, right? And so if you take the death of a loved one, for example, nobody's going to like that. Their loved one is now gone. They're not going to like that, but they do have to, in their rational mind and somewhat in their emotional self, accept that that person is no longer going to appear in their daily life like they did in the past. So that's usually the goal. And one of the things that I teach is emotion regulation. You use the word dysregulation, but regulating your emotions is very key in gaining that acceptance of the way things are, not liking it necessarily, but not pushing so much resistance, not not giving so much resistance, that's what's fatiguing. And a lot of times, people will come and say, say, I'm exhausted, you know, I don't like you said, you know, everything is just blown up. Everything's a mess right now. But actually, in reality, they're prolonging their pain by not accepting things as they are, and it's the harder way to go and seeking therapy and learning how to regulate your emotions, that's what brings around acceptance and kind of calms the nervous system down so that you can, again, not necessarily like everything that comes your way, but make sense of it and manage it effectively so it doesn't control you. Because a lot of times people think emotions are the problem. There will be so many clients that come in and say, I'm angry. I've got to let go of that anger. I feel so guilty for feeling angry, and I will say to them, feelings are not the problem. It's not anger that's the problem. It's that lack of regulating them. Yes, it's that lack of maybe either completing them right, completing expressing or suppressing right. Another saying in psychology is what resist persists. Yes. And so people are either pushing it down because, you know, again, they've got to take action. They've got to figure out how to get out of bed every day. And so it's not processing, it's not coming out, or they're they're not able to calm down in a way that they can function. And so they're in bed for three days and they can't they're feeling too much emotion. So the problem is either feeling too much or too little and and if you can name it, the emotion, there's a lot of evidence that says you will get relief just in naming the emotion, then you can learn how to manage it effectively with the wise mind, right? So again, that head, the thoughts, the cognitive light part, exactly. And so that's one tool that I teach, is emotion regulation. And I just think that is so key to everything. If we learned how to. Respond to emotion in a healthy way, our lives would be so much more manageable, right? And we would be less focused on others, because I think there is this outward approach of it's them, it's our environment. Politics is a hot button for everybody. Religion is a hot button for everybody, and it's always something outside themselves. And actually it's our response to it that is the problem. It's not necessarily what's happening, it's how we're responding. So same thing with emotion. It's not the emotion, it's how we're responding that's not working the fight or flight. Yeah, I
love that. I think it's so important for people to understand the image. I had a really clear image come to mind when you were talking of, you know, imagine a river, and I'm stand, I'm in the river, right? And there's three different things that we can do in that river. And I think what we want to do, because you say, like, acceptance isn't liking it, right? I think what a lot of people do by default, is they get in the river and then they swim upstream as hard as they can. They try to stop that river from flowing. So they're building dams, or they're shoveling, or they're swimming up it, or so much energy is exerted to resist that river, but we feel like the only alternative to that is to be swept away by the river. So like, well, I can't do that. I can't just get swept down there. I don't I don't like where that's going. But we kind of forget about the other option is to, like, put your feet down and stand up like you get to be rooted in you, and that river gets to flow around you, and it's not going to sweep you away. And I think that that's where a lot of the nervous system dysregulation comes from. And what I mean by that is people getting trapped in fight or flight or freeze and fawn, where you just get trapped in this automatic response, because we just feel like I can't get swept away, so I've got to keep going. And you're like, stand up. Just put your feet down. Be true to who you are. Like, know who you are, and stop worrying so much about the river. Like, let the river go, which still feels bad, and we have to acknowledge that. But I think there is some amount of like, first, just stand up like first, like, stop fighting the river. Acknowledge that the river does exist and it's flowing without your control and and let it be one thing that I wanted to just comment on, too, that you said when we're talking about the nervous system. The nervous system is our fight or flight. And one of the things that I think happens when we live in this way that you just described so nicely is I think we get stuck in victim mentality, and that sounds bad to people, right? So some people, when they hear that, will be like, I'm not, I'm not a victim. Like, I'm not being in a victim mentality. But stop for a second and say, What is a victim? A victim is someone who's not in control. So oftentimes, if things feel out of our power, then we feel like we are the victim, and if we are the victim, it feels bad like we our bodies will automatically start getting ready to fight Tigers or run from tigers. Why wouldn't it? If you're not in control of the situation, then you're going to get ready to fight or flee. So one of the things that still goes along with this idea of acceptance is recognizing that you get to accept. You get to put your feet down just by exerting the energy in that direction. It pulls our bodies and our brains out of fight or flight. We don't have to fight it if we feel like we have any essence of power which is slightly different from control. We want power in our lives. It doesn't mean we can control everything in our lives, but we want power, and if we feel powerless in our lives, we can't make any progress like we will feel bad if we feel powerless now, we can't feel power over the people in our lives. That's what you were saying, is it's not the people around us, it's our perception. We have to feel powerful in and of ourselves, right? So
any thoughts about that exactly,
well, and I think that I mean to add to your river analogy, I love that. My sister's actually a river guide in Bend, Oregon, I would say, if you can't stand up, ask somebody to throw you a paddle, yeah, right, that support system. Sometimes we don't have the energy or the strength to do it ourselves, but our support system and being willing and vulnerable enough, I guess, to ask for help when we need it, that can that can get the ball rolling right, that can get us up. So I think that's just such a great visual, that river that you described, and using your support system, because you don't have to do it alone, you know, because it is hard, like you said. And then number two, I guess, is acknowledging there's a difference between being victimized and being a victim. So absolutely, people have been victimized. Wrong has been done to them. Yes, something has happened right, out of their control that they had no say in. That is a very real thing, and to acknowledge that is very important, yes, yeah, but to be a victim, which means stay in that role of I have absolutely no power over my life. That's a choice over time that becomes a choice, and to realize that empowerment is what. Fuels us, and it really is just fuel. It's not about, you know, exerting power over others, like you said, but it's just reaching deep down inside. Again, it's always been there. It's just that we've gotten estranged from ourselves, culture, our culture, or upbringing has taught us don't trust yourself, the self doubt, the confusion, all of that's there. And so just tapping back into that again and just saying, Oh, that's right, I have these things, that intuition, I have those intuitive gifts, but somehow I've been estranged, you know, from them, or I've distanced myself from them because I've been saving others, or I thought that was the goal is to save others, and then I would be okay. But it's actually the reverse. So it's just, yeah, those are just so many good points to just recognize that being in a victim stance is very different from being victimized.
I'm so glad you clarified that, because there is a different approach if you've actually been victimized like that that needs I'm not just saying, like, they'll get over it, you know, like that's so I'm so glad you clarified that that is very different. I'm talking specifically about that victim mentality of powerless in your own life. So that's really important distinction. So I'm glad you said that. I want to dig into a couple of these big issues. I probably 50% or more of my patient population is this age group, and I would say, by and large, the number one thing that comes up for women in this age group is stress about my children. And given this age group, their children are usually either late adolescents or in their early 20s. Some of them are older 20s. But this age group, being a mom to this age group of late adolescents to early 20s, seems to be particularly challenging, and so I want to spend a few minutes talking about this, because I actually think it's pretty massive. One of the things that makes it so difficult is that you're transitioning in your role as a parent. Of you know, I have little children, and my job, literally, is to keep them alive, like keep them from walking into the road, yes, make sure that they eat and don't lose weight when they forget to eat, right? Like that is literally my job is to have a little bit of control there, to be able to exert that, that force, you know, to keep them alive. That's my job. And slowly, as they become more capable, I have to back off from that. And I think we, we kind of do okay with that when they're nine and 10 and 12, but when they start because they're they're not super, super capable to do things. Wrong? Does that make sense? Right? So when they're nine and 10 and 12, they start becoming very capable, like they can get dressed and they can get themselves to school, and they can remember their homework assignments, they can do all of those things. All of those things, but they're usually not capable to do things that could really cause them harm, like have a driver's license and go out drinking or, you know, so it's really when they become risk, yes, but that when they transition to becoming so capable, that's when I think our fight or flight as a mom goes way high because you're like, you could really mess up big time. Now you are capable enough that you could really mess up big time. So will you comment on that and how that comes up for you with clients, and what advice you have for women in this role of watching their children become so independent and having this fear for them, which is a really valid fear, like you want good things. And so when I talk to patients about this, some of them will be like, I mean, I am worried about them. I'm always going to worry about them. And yet I as a doctor have to say, you got to do you got to do it differently, because it's messing with your body. So what's the nuance there, and how we approach that role as a parent to Yes, we will always care about them, and we will always worry about them, and yet not lose our minds and go become anxious and crazy, right?
That's loaded for sure, right? That's
really just the little question I have for
all your problems in just a few minutes. So one thing that comes to my mind, and I actually taught a workshop on this. The title of the workshop was how to respect free agency, but still set limits. And so I think that having boundaries for ourselves. I think a lot of people think it's for the child, but the adult needs boundaries, right? If we are worrying too much and if we don't manage our fear or our emotions and all of the what if thinking that's in the brain, we really are not going to be our best selves as a parent, right? And we learn by watching others, not by what they say. And so here we are modeling all of this anxiousness for our child when we want to do the opposite. And don't you
think sometimes kids perceive that as lack of belief in them. I think that kids can sometimes see their parents worrying about them. And I think it can be perceived as like, why do you why are you so sure I'm going to fail? Why are you so sure that I'm going to screw up my life? I think that that we mean it so well, of like, oh, I want such good things for you, and I'm. I'm just nervous that something's gonna go wrong, and I think that can create a lot of oppositional behavior, defiant behavior, because it's like, why are you so sure I'm gonna screw it up? And so, like you said, they learn more from what we do and model than from what we say. So can we can we put off this vibe of like, I know 100% your life is gonna be amazing. Will you screw up? Absolutely, absolutely you will. I have no doubt that at some point you'll make a mistake, but I know who you are as a person. I know your little soul and your capabilities, and I believe in you. I think there's so much power there. Yeah,
I love that. One of the things that I learned to say as my kids, you know, turned 19, 1819, early 20s, is I can remember saying, I have confidence that you'll make the right decision, or I have confidence that you will figure it out, or I have confidence and so again, that's me putting boundaries on myself. I'm not going to go off on my emotional side and just say, Well, what if you do this? And I, you know, I'm a therapist, and I see people like this all the time, and this is the beginning of addiction. And what if this happens that instills a lot of anxiousness that maybe wasn't even there in the beginning, so you're actually doing them a disservice. But if you can take a step back again, regulate your own emotions first, and just say to them, I have confidence in you that instills in them, even if they have that self doubt. But like you said, they're usually pushing against the grain. You know how you know this is going to happen to me? It just kind of reassures them that, okay. I'm also calming myself down and saying this. And then another thing you can do is just be really honest about your feelings. I mean, all of us have had those moments where we're not winning the parent of the Year Award right to buy something we've done. And so just saying, Hey, I'm new at this, or even if it's like number three, and you've already raised two before, they have a different personality. This, the things that worked with others won't work with that one. And so just expressing, you know, your own vulnerabilities, and say, you know, I messed up yesterday. I said something I shouldn't have. I'm new at this, like, I don't know how to help you, and I have been doing some things that are not helpful. How can I support you right now? And just asking for a do over, right? We don't have to always be perfect. But again, the key and the number one advice I would give to women who are in this stage of life is to again, really turn inward and calm yourself first, right? And so just regulate your own emotions. Figure out internally what's going on with you. Why are you so fearful of this or acknowledging that? Fear, I think, for me as a parent, the hardest thing to watch was wasted potential. So you mentioned, you know your children, you've raised them, you've you know, you've given birth to them, in some instances, not always, right? But I can remember having this deep sense of, I I've been through it all with you. I know who you are, and you're not seeing what I'm seeing, yes, and for me, I had to learn how to be okay with wasted potential. What I saw is wasted potential, right? Your interpretation, my interpretation of that they have their own path. My path is not their path. But I thought I knew exactly what was best for them, and I didn't.
So it's hard to admit that well, and what you see is wasted potential. You know is they're not going down path A, the way you thought they should go down path A, and you don't even see that they're going down this incredible path B, because you're seeing all this wasted potential. And I think that even if you don't say that to them, they get the vibe they do. They get the vibe if you're disappointed that they're not reaching point A, they're they're gonna know that you're disappointed, but also you're missing the satisfaction of being a mom and being able to say, like, Pac B's amazing. Like this is so great, good for you. So I think that it can feel very all or nothing, like using that river analogy, like either I have to control them and swim upstream, or exert force, like I have to keep them in line, or they run all over me, right? And it's like, Well, no wonder you feel bad about life, because that's a really difficult dichotomy to live in, exactly. But can you be true to you by standing up? Can you be true to them by remembering who they are? And really, just like I have a two year old, right? We helped her to walk. How did we help her to walk? Not by holding her hand the whole time, like we slowly had one hand, and then we'd be close by and waiting for her, and we'd catch her if she fall. And then we back away and be like, you can do it. You can do it. Come on. You can do it. And I think, man, if we can do that as parents to older kids, because, like you mentioned earlier, talking about adolescents, they're trying to figure out what the heck is going on and who they are and what this world is about, and we get to say like, you can do it you. I believe in you. I'm going to remind you of those skills and those strengths that I know best as your mom. I'm going to tell you what that's about, and I'm going to help you understand who you are. Then I'm going to stand back and let you fail safely. I'm going to stand back and. Let you stumble, and then I'm gonna help you back up, and I'm gonna say you can do it. Do it again. Do it again. You know, I think just coming from that vibe, even recognizing that there is a middle ground where it's not like, well, either I worry about you or I don't care about you, that's just a really difficult black
and white. There is a gray, yeah, for sure, one thing I'll just throw in there is, I remember thinking what they want as a teenager in terms of a parent is just silent availability. So they want you to be quiet, but the minute they leave something at home, they're going to call you and say, Bring this to school. I need it. But you know, don't come and say hi to my friends, like, just drop it off and leave. Yeah, and you have to be okay with that and secure as a person to be able to do that, that silent availability is important when they're teens. Yeah. So that's, that's another tool that's, gosh, this
is a big topic. We just really scratched the surface. I feel like there's so much more to talk about. So we'll dive in another day. But I do think I want women who are going through this life transition to feel seen in this life transition. It. It is just we talk more now than ever. We're talking about menopause, and we're talking about the hot flashes and the insomnia and the joint pain, and we're talking about that, I'm so glad. But I don't hear many people talking about the extreme upheaval that comes in our lives, socially and and personally and interpersonally. It. It's massive. So we need to keep talking about it and supporting women and saying, like, if you feel like life just exploded on you, you're right. You're not alone in that, and there's lots of resources there for you. So thank you for helping us to scratch the surface on this and dive in a little bit. It's been so nice having you here. Yeah,
it's been great. Thank you, Mallory,
thank you. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. A huge thank you to our guests for sharing their insights and time with us. We are grateful for the incredible support from our sponsors and to all of you listening. We couldn't do this without you. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing on your favorite platform. You can find us on our website, uplift for her.com, YouTube, Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And if you found value here today, please share this episode with someone who would benefit from it. Leave us a comment or give us a review. It really helps us reach more listeners like you. Thank you for being part of our community. Stay tuned for our next episode. This information is for educational purposes only and not intended to be medical advice. You.
