More Than You See 3.13 - Season Finale! The World & Finding Balance in the Chaos

7:31PM Mar 21, 2022

Speakers:

Deborah Smith

Keywords:

beliefs

lives

myth

book

myths

mental health

podcast

remind

season

overwhelm

feeling

messengers

disappoint

resonate

fact

examine

embrace

rules

order

impacted

Hello, everyone, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of the More Than You See podcast, hosted by me, actor, filmmaker, mental health advocate, Deborah Lee Smith. Every Monday, I come to you to share some resources, have a conversation, and generally just dive into all sorts of topics around mental health. I am not a licensed practitioner or therapist, but just a woman exploring my own mental health journey, and sharing it with you, my listeners. My hope is that this podcast brings you some joy, some understanding and some tools so that you can build your own mental health toolbox.

Hi, everyone. Welcome back. And thank you for joining me for the final episode of season three of the podcast. Now, if you listen to me consistently, you will know that this episode is a long time coming. I have had just some crazy busy, some extraordinary, some difficult, just so many different things going on in my life. And I have been unable to return to the mic and to return to you all in order to give you this final episode. But I really wanted to put it out this week and make this commitment to you all, and to myself and to ourselves that we are going to continue to show up for each other in the mental health space. And just remind you that even when things are so overwhelming in the world, there is still this touchstone of More Than You See, and of our community and of myself, to remind you that there's something there to come back to when you're struggling. Because that is what this organization is really all about. And I intend to continue to grow this platform to be is a space for open, honest communication, and to share sometimes when we're not feeling great, and other times when we when we are feeling great. And I just really want to thank everyone for their patience as I took the time that I needed in order to return to you all in the best way that I could. And this is actually the final episode of the season. I will be taking a couple months to restructure things and regroup before I launch season four of the podcast in May for mental health month.

So please remember, there are a lot of really incredible episodes, past episodes. And please feel free to go back and listen to those. Our Instagram is active, I am continuing to do what I can on Tik Tok and be super hip and cool. And so there's a lot of other ways that you can connect with me. And I also want to remind everyone that I'm always open for suggestions for thoughts for feedback, I have built this community, not just for myself, but for you. And so if there's something that you would like to see more of, or less of, or whatever, I am so open to feedback. So please just slide into my DMs and let me know what is on your mind.

Now if you've listened to the podcast this season, you'll know that there have been little mini themes throughout the season. And the last couple episodes have been centered around a specific resource. And today's resource that I want to focus on is a book called How to Break the Good Girl Myth. Now I know it says "Good Girl". But this is not just for anyone identifying as female. This really is a book that I think resonates for anyone in any capacity. And the reason that it does is because this book is specifically talking about the rules and guidelines and beliefs that society has put on us and how we grow up taking those beliefs and believing them with all of our being and how sometimes those beliefs don't serve us anymore. And I really wanted to specifically focus on this book, because I want to give you all a little bit of insight into my overwhelm lately.

I think that as we unfortunately have all of the tragedies going on in Ukraine and with Ukrainian people. And everyone that is surrounded in that conflict. We also, of course have a new strain of COVID that is in Europe and is now reaching our shores, we've got just being exhausted from the past two years of tragedy and restructuring of our lives, and things falling apart, things coming together, even in good things, there is still some overwhelm, and some exhaustion in that. And I just want to remind everyone and remind myself that we're all feeling a lot of different things and a lot of overwhelm, at least I certainly am. And it's okay to acknowledge those feelings, and also know that some of the overwhelm is probably due to the fact that we are still holding ourselves to guidelines set out by society.

I really wanted to focus on this book, and I'll dive into in a second. But I definitely know that I have grown up under this idea of being a good girl, and the negative implications that that has had on my life. And the fact that I'm so unwilling to give myself a break, because I feel like I'm disappointing others, and how I often will put other people's feelings and what they need out of a situation over what I need. I put their needs above my own. And I know that part of this is from my people pleasing-ness, and the fact that I just want to be a good girl and do everything right. And that's exhausting.

It's exhausting on every single level, it was exhausting pre-pandemic, pre-conflict in Ukraine, pre-divorce for me, pre-all of these things. It was already exhausting to be a good girl. And now I'm finding it to be crushing in how much it's overwhelming me. And so I really - excuse me, this is clearly something that is impacting me right now - and I really want to encourage everyone, as I take this break from the podcast for everyone to examine the ways in their lives in which they are trying to be, quote, unquote, "good girls", and how we need to take some agency, even if it means disappointing others, how it's so important to put our own needs in some capacity over others. And it doesn't mean that everyone is going to like it. But sometimes it's more damaging to not believe and respect yourself than it is to, you know, lose something from someone else. And I'm not saying that you're going to lose respect from someone. But sometimes it's just important to respect yourself first.

Now, I'm going to stop my musings for a second and actually talk about what this book is all about. Now, this book, again, is called Break The Good Girl Myth. It's by Majo Molfino. And the little, you know, subtitle is How to Dismantle Outdated Rules, Unleash Your Power, and Design a More Purposeful Life. And the focus on this is to let go of perfectionism, and to focus on vulnerability and intimacy in our lives. And there's five myths that this book defines as sabotaging myths that can negatively impact our work lives, our relationships, and our overall well being.

The number one myth is the myth of rules, the importance of following external rules and authority instead of trusting our own desires, needs and opinions. The second myth is the myth of perfection. The fact that we demand perfection in others and ourselves instead of embracing mistakes and the reality of how things are. The third myth is the myth of logic. Choosing logic over intuition in decision making. The fourth myth is the myth of harmony, seeking harmony from someone or something from a situation instead of embracing the conflict, and the confrontation that is needed for that change. And the fifth myth is the myth of sacrifice, this myth that we need to put other people's needs above our own, at the expense of our own self care, and well being. And each of these myths is examined in this book. And then the author gives us the tools that we need in order to examine those myths and how they have shown up in our lives and encourage us to break those myths and figure out how we can modify how we are showing up in the world for ourselves and for others in order to be true to ourselves, and not continue to live under these rules.

Now, the reason I think that this book is just so special is that it's not just talking about these myths in an abstract way, because, uh, you know, of course, it seems like a "normal" quote, unquote, self help book that is basically saying, you know, "don't be perfectionist, embrace your imperfections" and, you know, "embrace change", and that's the thing that's going to help you achieve the next level. But this book goes beyond that, it really examines why we have these beliefs the way that we do. And, for example, it really talks about the patriarchy. And this, this idea that the patriarchy is something that - and I'm specifically talking about female identifying people who have been living under the patriarchal system for 1000s of years - it really examines this idea that the patriarchy is an abstract thing in some capacity. Like, of course, we see blatant patriarchal beliefs in some ways, like the fact that women are not paid as much as men or female identifying people are not paid as much as men, or the difficulties when it comes to women and being fired from jobs because they are going to have children. Like anything, anything like that, of course, that is very blatant sexism against women. But this book takes a step beyond that. And it looks at the things that are even hidden, like the the hidden ways that society has trained us to be good girls. And it introduces this idea of messengers, the people in our lives, who unknowingly give us these ideas of patriarchal beliefs. And oftentimes, these messengers are people that we are looking up to, in order to learn. This could be our family members, our parents, this could be our teachers at school, and when we are children, we are learning these beliefs, unknowingly, from these messengers.

And I'm not placing blame or saying that there is anything wrong necessarily from these messengers. Because, you know, I feel like, again, looking at this idea, like there cannot be perfection, even in the way that society is constructed in the way that we are going to learn as children. And as we grow up, there's no way for it to just be any kind of perfect, like what is perfect. But I think that this is why it's so important as adults, to look at the messengers that shaped who we are, and acknowledge if there are aspects of our own personality that are still being impacted in some way by these past beliefs. And again, this book really deconstructs those five different myths in a really important way, and dives into each one with some incredible tools and with a lot of knowledge about how those myths have impacted our lives and what we can do in order to work through those myths. So just again, those myths really quick are the myth of rules, the myth of perfection, the myth of logic, the myth of harmony, and the myth of sacrifice.

This book can be found wherever you will find a book or your Local Library. And if you check it out, please let me know what you have learned about yourself. This is a book that I read a few months ago. But I definitely think that I am feeling the need to reread it as I am really struggling right now with how to prioritize my time and potentially disappoint some people, I think that I'm coming to the point where I would rather find happiness and contentment, and by doing so disappoint some people, rather than continue to live this overactive life and disappoint myself. That being said, I want everyone to know how much this community really means to me, and how much I want to continue to expand it and grow it. And how I am really making a pledge to continue to do so. I do need help though. I really need the support from you all, to share this podcast with anyone who you think might resonate with what I'm saying and with I'm with the messages that I'm trying to get out in the world. And if you have any, you know, feedback, please reach out to me, it really does help me figure out what I should do next for you all.

As we end this season of the podcast, I want to once again, thank you all for being part of the community. I hope that this resource and some of the other resources that I've shared this season and on the website, bring you some guidance and some tools so that you truly can make your own mental health toolkit. I understand that right now, there's just so many emotions on every level as far as what is going on in our world and want to remind you to take care of yourself. There's only so much that we can all do. And sometimes the thing that we can do above anything else is to put ourselves first and and give ourselves the nurturing and the love that we might need. And the overwhelm that you might be feeling is not just what is going on in the world, which is a lot. It's also the internal beliefs that we have that we should be doing more that we should be holding ourselves to an unliveable standard when it comes to hustling and pushing ourselves forward. Just being, just the highest achievers possible. Of course, this may not resonate or apply to everyone. But I do think that a lot of us, definitely speaking about myself, we feel like no matter what we do, we're never doing enough.

And I want to remind everyone and remind myself, that part of that is the beliefs that we've gotten the messages that we've gotten from these messengers, and that we need to relearn some of these beliefs about how we show up in the world. And sometimes just being content and happy and living each day as its own little special moment in time. Instead of it just always being a thing to push forward today can just be about today. Again, this is something I am very much reminding myself, but I hope that this message resonates with you as well.

Over the next six weeks, I know that I'm going to be doing a lot of self reflection and realigning of my goals and my purpose, but I very much want to remind everyone that this community is so incredibly important to me and that I am going to continue to grow it and push it forward. And I appreciate everyone who is part of that journey with me.

Please over this next few weeks, be kind to yourself. Remember that you and everyone around you is More Than You See. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you in a few short weeks for season four of the podcast.