In this episode Jen + Jane discuss the Mental Load that women carry, often by choice, when it comes to the home, minding family, and letting loved ones fail. This involves ‘letting go’. But it’s often not as simple as that. Listen in as they look at the many different facets and implications of letting loved ones own their journeys, letting go of others' (and their own) expectations, and how or where the patterns first showed up. Enjoy!

Additional Resources/Reading:

●     https://www.amazon.ca/Mental-Load-Feminist-Comic/dp/1609809181

Questions for further guidance:

●     What would it take for you to ‘let go’ of the outcome, or of how you think things ‘should’ be?

This is no halos here hosted by Jen Lang and Jane

Stark, the place to inspire a change in your consciousness to

elevate the world. We're to heart centered business owners

nourishing our inner rebels while growing our respective

businesses.

No halos here is the result of bringing together an

opera singer turned spiritual mentor and a marketing

professional turned while being coached to meditate daily.

Together, we unite physical, mental, emotional and spiritual

energies into a powerful presence to lead, heal and

inspire. We love exploring the shadowed edges of life, the

universe and beyond through honest and thought provoking

conversations. Let's dive in.

Hi, again, and welcome back to another episode of no

halos here with Jen Ling and Jane Stark. Oh, my goodness,

wait to hear what we have to talk about today. We just did a

little preamble chat. We're like, Ah, we're fired up. We're

fired up. So yes, it is like bless the mess and all the shit

in between.

Yes, bless the mess. But yeah, so today we're talking

about letting it go. Blessing the mess, letting the mess be.

And I think there's a couple of angles with this, though, like

that. We want to take this. So you're gonna have to stick with

us follow along? Because one of them is on the heels of our

podcast last week about self acceptance. Yep. And absolutely,

where can we sort of come into a place of more acceptance and

allowing things to be? And we can talk about the more. I don't

know, 3d human worlds, like, you know, letting your house be a

bit messy. Like having your daughter's music teacher over

when you're recording a podcast. I can hear the music in the

background. That's just my life.

I can't hear. Okay, good.

So there's that aspect of it. And then there is

the more psychological I don't know what to call it, but like,

emotional piece of like, allowing people to be in their

own process and their own maybe emotional mess without jumping

in and trying to fix it and save the world

and save the day. Right? Just because it makes you

feel better to do that.

Yeah. So one of the things that spurred this

conversation on was a post that I came across a while ago on

LinkedIn, by I don't actually know her last name a woman, she

goes by AMA on the big bad interwebs. And I believe I don't

actually, I feel like she might be European. And this is

translated into English. But anyways, she the link in the

show notes, yeah, we put a link to I have the link. And she

wrote a book, it's actually a book called The mental load a

feminist comic. And it's posted on a blog as well. So we'll link

to it. But she really talks about and impacts the mental

load, which for women, and we know, this has been talked about

a lot. So we're not going to go like too too far into that. But

then on her blog, she does these little short snippets, short

blog posts, and, and comics. And she talks here about how she was

invited to another conference about the mental load, and what

it looks like to let go and just surrender. And it was targeted

at women. And she brought up the point and she was like, when are

we going to have a conference to targeted at men helping to

support them about how to step up and take your part in the

household. And it just, it just is it got me going like I was

like, This is so true. And she talks about and she was a bit

like she just goes a bit, you know, to make the point, but

like she's like, you know, the responsibility always relying on

women to change to shift to accommodate, you know, women are

too demanding. Women are too controlling, you know, and then

she talks she says, So what happens if we let go? And like

when and if somebody else then he or she says if a man but

let's just say the partner or somebody else? What if you let

go and nobody takes over? What happens? The dishes rot in the

sink. The kids Jesus example, the kids don't get their

vaccines, the kids, you know, like, kind of just two

kids medical appointments or dental

appointments. Yeah. So

yeah, so that kind of got us really fired up. And

sort of this conversation about what does it look like to let go

a little bit and I do think there's, I think there's a

balance because speaking personally, I definitely have

had to let go and surrender a lot of things over the last well

basically since becoming a mother. And there is power in it

for sure. Like I am done. Definitely, because I think I

was I was, we got to look at why we're holding on. So I was

trying to maintain control in my life by having things look a

certain way. But it's because, again, more of an internal

thing. I don't have control over what's happening. Like, there's

all these aspects of my life that I didn't have control over.

So if I have control here, then it makes me feel okay. And I

think I'm okay.

Yes. And that can show up in different opposite

different parts of your life. So that might show up in how you

dress or how or how you eat. Yeah, but also how you keep your

house. And so

how you parent, how you pay, what else what to do,

how you run through your day from start to finish all of it.

And so

yeah, it doesn't, I'm gonna say like, obviously, the

easy target is parents, but it doesn't just show up in families

with children, it could show up in couples within larger family,

familial relationships, and that, that just partners part

like, yep, just partners. Yeah, like, Kirk, I don't have kids.

But there's different. I'd say that Kirk and I have a pretty,

I'm gonna say fairly even division of labor and chores in

the house, although I am definitely the record keeper. In

terms of like, the dealings like doing the medical claims, and

those logins and the filing of the paperwork and the life

things, that which is, again, a different part of the mental

load, which isn't always acknowledged. And I almost like

sometimes I have to point it out and be like, the dining room

table is messy with paperwork, because I'm taking care of our

filing. It's nothing to do with, like, I'm not trying to thwart

you or make you feel like this place is cluttered. It's it's

something to do with, you know, our life together.

Right. Yeah. And I mean, I think so it can show up

like that, for sure. It also can show up just in controlling

behaviors, right? Like, again, in relationship, right, where

it's like, don't do it this way. Do it that way, or don't do it.

So there's many different ways that it shows up. In my

experience for me, it was definitely I had to look at

okay, why am I kind of trying to control my external world so

tightly? Because I felt like my internal world or like, there

was all these things. So, you know, for a while there, like it

was my health and it was my kids. It was my discomfort with

my husband's career and his travel. Everybody's been really

loud in my house right now.

Oh, real life, you know, right. This is like

literally the perfect example of like, letting letting the mess

be the recording, and family labeling.

And that is something I think COVID has

actually really helped us with, it's become it's helped to

normalize that. Oh, yeah. The cat just crawled over my

computer. My keyboard. Oh, yep. My kid just opened the door. And

you're in the middle of a meeting. Right. Like, that is

one thing. I will say that I'm so grateful that COVID actually

really did help us just become more authentic, like, yeah, that

these are our lives. And this is how this is behind the scenes

and what really goes on. But I think today in terms of the,

like, letting the mess be. We wanted to also get into the I

don't know the side of it, where? How, I just think I

noticed. Yeah, go ahead.

I was gonna say like, letting the mess be is instead

of feeling like women have to fix something. Yeah, it's

letting our loved ones fuckup. It's letting our loved ones mess

up. And like,

not always trying to change it, correct it, fix it,

tell them how to navigate it. Exactly. And I say this because

I used to be the queen of that. Right? Like, and that's again,

that space of trying to control everything, right? Where, but

when we can't allow people to feel the natural consequences of

their actions, or inaction or inaction. How do you how do we

ever expect change to happen? They don't have to feel the

consequences. Yeah. Like it's so disempowering. Is that a word? I

think

it's disempowering. And it's also it's also actually

not in service to the highest good of your partner or your

loan, because you're preventing them from learning. The the

lessons of mice a brothel

here to learn. Yeah, right. I mean, it's the whole. I

mean, I'm, you know, as a parent, we hear the term natural

consequences all the time in the parenting space. And it's really

interesting to start to unpack it and what does that actually

mean and what does that actually look like? And what I started to

realize is that Like, as a society, we don't actually

really let people feel natural consequences of their actions

very often. Children are not. Yeah, like, you know, even think

about down to, you know, my kids aren't quite at they're not at

high school level quite yet. But how many parents wake their

teams up to get them to school on time? And what are you doing

when you do that? Yep. How is your team going to learn to show

up for work on time? When Mom's not there to kick them out of

bed anymore? In the morning, so why are we stopping them from

learning these lessons when they're 14 1516? And then they

have to learn them when they're 25 or whatnot. I was just

talking to a friend who she was we were talking about this, this

exact thing and how she had to I don't remember if she refused,

she said her. Her son is in his early 20s. Now, and and she I

don't remember when when he was a teenager, and she did the

whole get him up a door not. But she said she finally stopped

like he had his first job. Or one of his, like, first jobs.

And she finally like had this moment of like, Yeah, I'm not

going to tell you. I'm not going to nag you about being late for

work. And she's like, what happened? He finally lost his

job, because he couldn't show up on time. Wow. So he had to

learn. But we're coddling our children through this and not

letting and then and then the cycle just continues right? And

as adults, we do it to our spouses. We do it to our family,

like

do we feel like this is a family? There's some

breakdown here around generational aspects. So I'd say

that you and I fall into this broadly into jetpacks where I

was definitely like a latchkey kid. I was definitely a latchkey

kid, like, I got my cell phone from school. I entertained

myself until my parents got home from work. And, you know, that

was I was absolutely expected to be self sufficient. Got myself

like, washed to myself to school in the morning. And to music

lessons. Yes, my parents drove me when appropriate and when

necessary, but part I think there's partly personality piece

because I'm very much a self starter. Right. And partly

generational.

Yeah, I mean, we've heard you know, you hear about

the helicopter, parent generation and all of that. I

mean, I was sort of a latchkey kid, I wouldn't say I was a full

on latchkey kid. Not not as much. But I also I mean, I don't

know, I also had, for me, like, if I reflect on the high school

years and things like that, I had, I had a different

experience a little bit because I got sick. Right? In grade 11.

So I still had like, eight 910. But by grade 11, I got mono and

I had mono for the last half of grade 11, and first half of

grade 12. So I had a free pass to come and go to school

whenever I wanted to. So it was a very weird experience, because

I had no accountability, like it was, you know, I don't even know

if you do any more. But at that time, you actually I think you

had to have a letter, like a note from a parent to leave and

use, can you sign in and sign out of school? And I just had a

yeah, like I say, a free pass for I just came and went as I

could. So I don't really have a normal view of that. I don't

think but it's an interesting question. Because did our

parents not wake us up in the morning, or I don't know,

I think I remember, I don't remember my parents ever

getting the app. But again, I was always an early riser. I was

always very self motivated in the morning. And that was for a

whole variety of reasons as a teenager. But interestingly,

thinking of natural consequences. So I took math 12.

And around I'd say, a couple months, four months, three, four

months into my grade 12 year, I started hanging out with some

interesting people in a different community. And so then

my grades suffered, particularly in math, because it was such a

compounding. Like, if you didn't get the previous concept, you

could move on to the next concept. And so, you know, the

natural consequences of that was that my GPA fell and actually

didn't get my final grade 12 scholarship. So I was $500. It

was a every year you got more, but because of the academic

classes I chosen, and that one grade pulled me down just enough

that didn't actually get that $500 for university. So $500 in

the 90s went a hell of a lot further than it does now

obviously, but I understood then the natural consequences of

balancing a social life with academics write that, for me was

a very real thing now as an adult, yeah, of course I know

these things. But it's always helpful to have a reminder. You

know, we're because I was a self starter I would I, I still have

this tendency to overbook, my calendar and over scheduling.

And so every once in a while Kirk or even sometimes you've

nudged me and be like, oh, looks really busy. And like, it's not

all appointments like I put placeholders in there for taking

breaks and things like that. But I have to remind myself not to

overbook. And now that I work with my natural cycle with my

period and my menstrual cycle, I know not to book a lot in that,

you know, that couple days before in a couple days of

otherwise, I'll burn myself out, or I know I booked myself space.

So I know from natural consequence from getting sick.

And those pieces so i.

So that's interesting, though, because

that's because you were allowed to learn to feel the

consequences and have the consequences, right. But if

somebody was always in there, stepping in right at the last

moment to save you from, you know, whatever the thing was,

you don't actually get to learn that and then you don't, and

then you just keep repeating the same patterns and the same

patterns and the same patterns. I think that's a big part of

this, right? Like, we, again, like I look at just some

incident incidences, like in my own household, I mean, I think,

I think the family and parent dynamic, I think, both like

relationship, like spouse partner, yeah. And then family

dynamic, or the easiest way is to see where this shows up. But

you know, like, for example, when my kids don't like the way

my husband's parenting, and they come running to me, and I used

to be really, really, like, really good at jumping in and

saving the day, or course correcting or whatever. But then

I wasn't actually honoring and allowing both my child and my

husband to feel the consequences or to see like to, to navigate

their relationship and figure out what isn't isn't working.

Yeah. And so I'm actually blocking them from learning that

lesson, which, when it was put to me that way, I was like, Oh,

that doesn't feel very good. Exactly. It's hard. Like, I

really, it's really hard for me not to jump in and be like, Hey,

why don't we try it this way, or do that or this thing or

whatever. Because that's my own discomfort. With However, things

are going down. And so that piece, that's been my big, big

lesson, like I've gone through the whole, bless the mess of the

house, and let go of caring so much about what people think,

or, you know, if there's a mess here or there and whatever. And

now I feel like I'm in this next layer of like, Hmm, what would

it look like to let people actually have their emotions

about things to let people you know, be in their own mess,

like, and spin in their shit and not do anything till a friend of

mine called it like sitting in their puddle of mud, and go in

and save the day. And I don't know, I'm still kind of

unpacking where I picked this up. But I definitely picked up

this Savior, piece of like the I can go in and fix it or save it

or whatever. But again, it's, it's very, it's kind of from a

self serving place. It's because I'm not comfortable with that

mess. Or perhaps because of some ego perspective where I think I

can save the day. And I'm, and I'm tying value to my ability to

do that. So that's been really humbling to have to look at

those pieces. Totally. Totally, also really empowering. As I've

started to get over the like, initial UI with it. It's really

empowering to kind of be able to go, Okay, I don't have to fix

this. I don't have to save this. Like, hello, boundaries.

Yes. And that so much of this conversation threads

through I'm going to say through threads through so much of the

work we do, because yes, it's boundaries. Yes, it's a level of

self acceptance. And it's a level of surrender. And that

other broader acceptance piece and love can you accept the

journey and the life lessons that your loved ones are here to

learn and take on without interfering?

And here's an here's the clincher societal

conditioning puts a lot of pressure on women to fix the

mess. So it's not just like I guess there's some reflection

where I'm like, where did I pick this up? So Some of it is

probably childhood, a lot of it is conditioning, right? We're

conditioned to be the good girl. We're conditioned as women to be

the ones that go in the pathetic ones that like, Oh, you're

hurting, you're hurting, let me come and like make that feel

better for you to please to, you know, like, how much of things

reflect if the house is messy, subconsciously, who do we think

we go to first? Oh, she right keeps a really untidy house? Do

we think like, oh, wow, he really like he really doesn't,

you know, tidy up, I think we go to the woman first. That's just

subconsciously where we go to,

because women for 1000s of generations have been

traditionally the keepers of the household. So the parenting and

the parenting. And so all that, I mean, that is threaded through

our ancestry, it's in our genetics and our DNA, and it's

in social conditioning as well to this day. So then it's

important to look at that, and go, you do not have to fix

everything within the household, because otherwise, how will you

know how your How will your loved ones know? What's theirs

and what's not? And how do you know what's yours and what's

not?

Yeah, totally. And also some self compassion,

though, because and I guess I brought up that point about the

social expectations, because we're kind of swimming upstream

on this one, right? We're working against a very ingrained

system, as far as far as we have come for women's equality, we

still have a really long way to go. And we're still, you know,

on all of these things, we are absolutely working against

societal expectations. I mean, but it's interesting, even I've

noticed in my household now, now that I've surrendered and let go

of this, like need to have things, a certain level of

cleanliness or whatnot to have people over, we've almost

swapped where I find my husband is more conscious. And he'll now

be like, oh, like, we need to clean up. I'm like, Oh, if you

feel like you need to clean up, go for it before they come over,

but I'm not, which has also been really empowering. Because this

is an this actually might be a really good example, where I've

had to come to a place of accepting his discomfort, like,

okay, he's feeling like the house is not tidy enough. So

that's his own stuff to deal with. So from the emotional side

of it, I have to let go with that and be like, Okay, well,

and then have the boundary of, hey, like, you're welcome to get

it to your standard. Whereas in the past, I probably would have

felt the guilt and jumped in and been like, oh, yeah, okay, let's

clean up, let's like, did it at Ulta. And now, I'm at this place

of like, Cool, man, like, so it's like,

I have a similar story where my husband, we have two

dogs, both of whom shed and so this spring has been a copious

amount copious amounts of dog hair. And, you know, the

vacuuming and dry mopping piece where Kirk is, usually the group

will be the first one to pull out the Dry Mop in the vacuum,

because honestly, I have different priorities. And he's

very self aware about it. He knows that for him seeing the

dog hair and the Duster round is like disrupts his mental state

and his clarity of thought. He knows that and fully owns it.

But he doesn't expect me to do the vacuuming or the drug

bombing. He takes care of it because that's his thing.

Interestingly, though, when it comes to this is a slightly

different nuanced thing. He would rather see it out of sight

out of mind than actually take care of it fully.

Okay, I have the same issue same. Okay, let's go

to the issue. I'll rephrase that same situation at my house. And

just to backup for a quick sec to in my story that I was

sharing to give my husband credit. He never He is not the

one that makes me feel guilty. Like no, he absolutely like

Kirk, he will, he'll be the one that will get in there and

clean. It was me that was taking on the guilt and the feeling of

oh, I better like I better help or I better do this. Why not? So

Exactly. Like I'll offer Kirk might he'll like back

in the top floor. I'll be like, Yep, I'll vacuum the ground

floor. But I'm not going to get to it till tomorrow. So just

leave the vacuum at the bottom of the stairs and I'll take care

of it tomorrow. Yeah, and so it's bit clarity but so

interesting. So the sight out of mind out of sight out of mind

piece is more. I'm kind of like it's a little bit like the

clutter piece. But I guess if I use the my my I'm gonna broadly

use recycling as a as a kind of catch all term. So I recycle our

soft plastics and but I have to take them to the recycling

center. They don't get picked up from our house. So I have a

couple boxes by the back door. That is like one is soft

plastics and one is crunchy plastics. It's like it's not

rocket science. If it's soft, it goes in one if it's crunchy goes

in the other. And where do I still find the plastics in the

garbage? With paper? I'm like, I don't understand like, cotton

great. He's probably not gonna listen to this ever, but you

never know. And like, yes, my husband vacuums, he cleans. He's

more like, I'm gonna say he's more about the cleaning of the

counters and stuff like that, that I am. At the same time.

It's the it's, I guess it's like a dissonance between the there's

a cognitive dissonance between if you care so much about the

cleaning. Why is the recycling such a challenge? Right? Well,

it just it it's out of sight out of mind. It's like, as long as

it's somewhere,

or is it priorities? I don't know. It's like, it

makes me think of like, so Mike. Mike likes a clean car. Hmm. So

he will put like, the cars get cleaned. But sometimes I'm like,

How come the house doesn't? Like, how come? There's not the

same opposite thing?

I like a clean car. And Chris will say he does. But

I will find like three receipts crumpled up and shoved into like

the coffee cup holders and like or in the thing? And I'm like,

can we just like not shove it somewhere? Can we just bring

them inside? Recycle them do something with them. So it's

kind of an interesting, interesting, I don't know where

we're going with this. But it is kind of like it is blessed the

maths and let stuff go. At the same time having these open and

honest conversations and, and acceptance about

septons. And a lot of boundary work. It's been a

lot of like I say, putting up that boundary of if he wants a

cleaner house, say again, if I'm just using the example of house

guests coming over, and it's not to his standard, that having the

boundary of like, that's okay, I'm not going to make that be

about me. And I don't, that doesn't mean that I have to

necessarily get up and get it to that standard. And that has been

a big shift for me. And so that's the piece of like,

allowing him to have his feelings. And sometimes if I'm

being totally honest, sometimes I judge him for that, like, oh,

like really do just let it go and did it. That's me. That's me

judging again. So having to get to that place of just like,

Okay, you're not comfortable. That's okay. But that's not on

me. And sort of pull it back to this, like, you know, again,

letting the mental load but also letting people have their

feelings, letting people be in their puddles of mud, and not

running into save the day and fix it

and let them understand and feel and know we

can consequences

be there for them. So we're not saying like, be

totally cold people, and just like, oh, sucks to be you.

Right? We can still have empathy, and we can still have

compassion. But there's a big difference between that and

going in and actually like trying to fix something for them

or to control something or tell them how to do something or how

they should feel. Yeah, and all the things that if my husband

listens to this, he's gonna be like, Oh, my gosh, like, she

really talked about this because I, I think I did really used to

be that way. I'm still that way. And like, I'm still a work in

progress. But, you know, it's, this has been my journey of

unpacking this and like, wow, like, Okay, I need to really be

okay. With every with some of the messy parts, some of the

messy bits of life, like, my family doesn't look like the

perfect family, and that's okay. But I don't think my dad doesn't

because it's

just, it's family life is by definition, messy in some

form or another. And if it's, if it's pretty honestly, and if

it's not, you have staff. Right, I saw this, and like speaking

of, you know, learned helplessness and not understand

the consequences of actions when Kirk and I lived in Abu Dhabi

and Dubai. And we encountered people who grew up in homes with

servants and with, you know, staff who, like the kid walks in

the door, drops their bag, takes off their shoes and walks away,

and the staff pick up, empty the bag, empty lunchbox. And then

this child grows up gets their first job when they're 33 and

has no idea how to show up in the workplace. Yeah, so there is

something to be said for this, like balancing the self

sufficiency, understanding privilege and showing up like

learning the life lessons of like if you don't show up, but

that's the other thing. Consequences. So the three three

year old that I'm thinking of, didn't have any natural

consequences because of the way There, the social economic

structure of that country is setup. Right? They could show up

whenever they want, and they would still get their paycheck.

Right. So yeah, different cultural norms. But

yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, coming back to sort of this

natural consequences, right, like, we hear it in parenting,

but I'm really starting to see where we also in adulthood,

don't allow each other to feel natural consequences. Yeah. And

that every time we do that, we're actually not, we're losing

our mental load? Well, we are, we're also increasing our

enmeshment. Like, with each other, we're not. And we're

just, we're not like, what if we could all hold each other to be

whole sovereign beings, and actually trust that we can

navigate our way through things. And I know, like, like that

might be making light. Like, there's lots of situations that

come to mind where you can't just, we can't just take this

conversation and apply it blankly to every scenario. But

it's definitely something that, you know, I've been unpacking

and navigating that we see with our own clients. Like you say,

it's rooted in a lot of the work we do. And it's really fucking

empowering. It's very empowering, we unpack it, and

when we can start to step into, into that.

So yeah, I can hear there's some kids in the

background, but I can't it's not loud. I was gonna say that. So

for those of you who are listening, who might be

recognizing or seeing aspects of your life or yourself, where you

may have taken on too much of the mental load, or you're you

realize that you can allow natural consequences to unfold

more fully whether the person you are keeping in mind is is an

adult or not. The what are some ways that you can start with

this process? Some suggested like, one might be just

observing,

observing? Might I feel like my answer to this

question, no matter what episode we're on is a little bit the

same. But it's like, yeah, it's observing and noticing what you

feel about it. So stop projecting out Yeah. As to what

the other person is doing and start turning that mirror and

going, how's this making me feel? What am I judging about

myself in this? What am I trying to control? Because I feel like

where do I feel like I don't have control? So I'm trying to

control here? Yes.

And letting go of so hard, letting go of judgment

around this self judgment. And this is where the acceptance

piece comes in. If you have not yet listened to our piece on

self acceptance, go back and listen to that. Right after

this. That was last week's episode. This when we can move

into this reflective state. And this observation based. And

notice, oh, here, I'm noticing my judgment. Okay. About myself.

Yeah. Okay. So Oh, that's interesting. And maybe just this

phrase. Hmm, that's interesting, is a really good way to

neutralize the judgment. And then you can go deeper as we

went at this first begin. Yeah, the curiosity event. Yeah, what

life event if you can link it to one. But again, this is kind of

some of the work we do. So if you want to unpack it with us,

then definitely, our 321 countdown offer is like the

three sessions two of us. One transformation that's over a one

month period, that's a this is it. That's a great space to

start to unpack some of this. Yeah.

But noticing where you're gripping, like, and where

are you gripping in life? Like, where am I, you know, my friend

of mine, and somebody and I sometimes talk about, like, Oh,

I'm white knuckling it. And sometimes I can, like, look and

go yeah, like I and, and sometimes some of it, you need

an outlet, like, there are like, it's a that this whole, like,

there's a lot of scenarios in life where we don't have we

can't control. They're happening. They're hard, whether

it's like a family member is ill or, you know, relationships

coming apart or, you know, God knows, like so many different

things, right, where we don't have control. And so we go and

try and control other aspects. And sometimes I see myself doing

it where I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm getting super uptight about a

mess and clutter in the corners and stuff. Okay, yeah. Well,

because I know that such and such is happening over here. And

that's feeling really like, it's big. And there's a lot of

emotions and it's actually making me feel better right now

to just go and clean up that corner of the house. Like that's

okay, too, is when we're,

but again, that's taken action. Yeah. To help

you feel that, again, is more around like, then

we're doing that and we're doing it for ourselves. We're not

projecting outwards on to other people. I think where we have to

be really conscious is when we start to project that to our

loved ones when we start Who should on them when we start to

tell them how they, you know, should be what they should do?

And all the things because

it makes them feel like they're not enough? Yeah,

yeah.

Yeah. And then there's the whole needing cycle.

So

that's another whole other podcast episode when did

that but

hopefully this was a bit helpful, we're just trying

to unpack a little bit of what you know of what we've observed

and what we go through and,

and when you put down some of the mental load in your

life and let others

let others this is the other thing if you never put

it down, then you don't actually give the other an opportunity to

pick it up. Yeah. And it's such an interesting cycle where we

will put it down. So the other can't pick it up. But then we

become resentful, because they're not picking it up. But

it's like, but you're not putting it down. So how are they

supposed to pick it up? Like, it's, this is the thing, right?

I mean,

really simple life example here. So Kirk, and I

each do our own laundry. And part of this, like, for our

entire relationship, we have always done her own laundry. And

I think he did one load of laundry for me once I hadn't,

you know, like, he put a blouse and in a trunk, and he's like,

Oh, no, he's like, the thing that happened. I'm like,

whatever. It's not a big deal. But, and I occasionally I will

fold his laundry, but I will not put his laundry or his clothing

away. Because I will not be that person to be like, where's my

socks? Where's my underwear? Where did you put this? Because

I didn't want that mental load. And so if you apply that simple,

like laundry example, to other aspects of your life, then how

much yeah, later while you're meant to load babe,

can you put down and a be okay? If it doesn't pick,

get back or be like, give it some time, and it will get

picked up or clear communication, put it down and

be really clear in a very neutral, non emotional, non

judgmental way to somebody in your family, like whether it's a

loved one, a friend, whatever, whoever it is, really clearly,

hey, I really need you to pick this piece up for me, would you

be able to do X, Y and Z like sometimes it really comes down

to simply healthy communication, definitely, I no longer can do

this, I need you to do it. And that's another another really

simple but powerful thing. But yeah, when we don't put it down,

I'll never forget, I think I've shared this example on the

podcast before, but I'll quickly share it too, just to give

another illustration when my kids were younger. And you know,

I had my girlfriends, when all of our kids were kind of

younger, there was a number of times where I remember, like,

I'd go on girls weekends. And so many of my friends would lay

everything out for their husbands for the kids pack. Like

okay, the food, this is the food that's in the fridge, I've laid

out their clothes for each day of what they need to wear, or

I've packed their bag for bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla.

And it's like, Is your husband not a co parent? Are they not?

So but so much of it I saw was rooted in the need to control

how it was done with the child? Yes. Oh, well, they might not

they're gonna put them in, you know, mismatched clothing,

they're gonna like, like, they're not gonna be able to do

that, like, really, they're their CO parent, they should be

equally able to be raising this child. And without getting into

the whole thing about, you know, different dynamics that way.

It's like, how are men? How was the other partner ever supposed

to figure out how to do this with the child if we don't

actually let them? Or if a kid

wants to put a striped sock and a polka dot sock on one

day, and pair it with like a tutu and some I don't know, the

trousers. I mean, that's Yeah, it's like whatever, you know,

it's, it's again, again, allowing the agents not

experimentation.

Exactly. Because that child is eventually going

to go to school. And trust me, they're going to get berated

with the social norms of what matches and what doesn't and

know what happens if you show up all like mismatched. And that's

a whole nother thing. But yeah, that's like that is the prime

thing of natural consequence. Society is set up to have these

borders these boundaries to help us figure out how to they're not

always positive, but it's just the way it is in some senses,

but we're always jumping in there interrupting.

Yeah, exactly. Makes life way harder. So down the

mental low, we should start a song for each episode, put down

the mental load.

on that happy note, please put down the mental load and lets

the mess mass. let things be and if you want some guidance and

some support on it, reach out word, definitely reach out to

us. We'd love to help you with that. Alright, have an amazing

day, night time, whatever it is, you're listening to this and

we'll see you soon. and soon on no hay here by. Thanks for

joining us for these conscious combos. If you're ready to dive

deeper head on over to lead gen and jane.com to continue the

conversation.

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