Transcript:
Hey y'all, I'm back with another episode. This time I want to tell you about the time I girlbossed too close to the sun. As you may recall, if you subscribe to my weekly newsletter, what's you should definitely check out if you haven't already. April was a month. I knew going into it that it was going to be a lot like six speaking engagements, two podcasts interviews, two freelance stories and two trips to the West Coast within two weeks, kind of a lot.
But when my friend Marissa asked me what I was going to do to keep my sanity, I was like yoga and meditation, as if somehow that would be enough. Now if Morgan Freeman were narrating my life, he would say she would soon learn that it was not enough.
It all came crashing down on me one fateful Wednesday afternoon, I was on deadline for god knows what. And also desperately needed to find an outfit to wear to this work conference I was at last week, I was going to be moderating the panel and facilitated a mindfulness moment. So I want it to look really good.
This on top of the fact though, that between the pandemic and pregnancy, literally nothing in my closet fits. And I've been having a really hard time finding clothes, let alone professional clothes that flatter this postpartum body.
So Jeff, my husband, happened to be at Zara on his lunch break, and I asked him if he could find something for me, too. He did. And we spent the next 20 minutes or so on FaceTime putting together different outfits. But if you know us in real life, then you know, he's the more fashionable one out of the two of us. So it was really him putting together the outfits.
While while that was happening, I got an “at” in a DM on Slack. And I don't know why. But that really sent me over the edge. And when I saw it, after I'd finished talking to Jeff, I slid down the kitchen cabinets and cried on the floor. I was so overwhelmed. I was doing too much. And I needed more than just yoga and meditation.
Thankfully, I had therapy in 10 minutes. And usually my meltdowns tend to happen days after therapy. And I have to wait two weeks for my next session. But this time, my body and brain finally got it together. And I was grateful.
My therapist also knowing all along that I needed more than yoga and meditation suggested I triage my to do list instead of trying to do it all at once, like I always do. hearing her say it made sense. But it wasn't until I busted out my notes app and broke down what I needed to do. And when I needed to do it, that I started to feel some of that anxiety lift.
Sure, there may still be 15 things on my to do list. But they don't all need to get done today. What's the most important thing read singular thing that I needed to do today, and the next day and the day after that.
Whereas I typically try to have a bird's eye view of what's going on in my life at all times. That particular perspective isn't helpful when it comes to managing one's anxiety around trying to do all the things I needed to prioritize.
And I needed to triage, I also needed to take an honest look at how I got here in the first place. In an effort to avoid the same mistakes in the future. I'd been joking with a few friends that the month of April would be a really good test run for my upcoming book tour this summer, and serve as a good lesson on how to manage my time and energy. Essentially, I crashed and burned.
And I do not want to do that this summer when it comes to the book tour or any other point in my life. And so I'm using the month of May, as a reset, I'm looking at those learnings from the previous month and apply them to this month. And we're only two days in but so far, so good. I am getting better at saying no to different requests.
And I'm also learning to leave more whitespace on my calendar to allow for life's unexpected joys and opportunities that come along that I can't necessarily plan for, you know, the month ahead the month ahead, rather. And yeah, it's been an interesting experiment. And I'm also incorporating more movement because my workouts also kind of fell by the wayside last month.
So I'm being really intentional about that as well. And I also want to get back into more mindfulness and meditation because I also, even though I said I was gonna do yoga and meditation, I didn't actually do those things. So I'm really excited for next week's conversation. Our monthly conversation for May is going to be with Nathalie Walton, who is the VP of brand and social impact at Babylist.
She's also the former CEO and co founder of expectable, a holistic wellness app for hopeful expecting and new moms. And if you knew me when I was pregnant, then you know how much this app means to me. It was just instrumental in everything that I was going through with perinatal depression, postpartum depression and anxiety, PTSD after infertility, literally all the things so I'm really excited to chat with Natalie, because it's May it's Mother's Day, it's mental health awareness month and maternal mental health is so so important to me and it's going to be a really good interview. So I hope you'll tune in and I'll talk to you then take care
That time I girlbossed too close to the sun