Fear, guilt and the stories we tell ourselves get in the way of almost everything. In this episode of A Glimpse Inside, host Wendy Perrotti tells us how she found herself unhappily in the middle of everything she thought she’d always wanted. Starting from a point of having completely lost herself to the details of everyday life, she tells you what she did to turn it all around and how you can do it too.
Welcome. This is A Glimpse Inside. I’m Wendy Perrotti. If you’ve been with me the past few months, you know that we’ve been talking about a topic that so many women struggle with: Fear and guilt holding you back. And that back in the day, I did too.
Today, I want to talk about fear, guilt, and the other gunk that is holding you back from being who you want to be, from living the way that you want to live. That gunk erodes your relationships, it chips away at your confidence, it makes you forget your potential.
In the series that we just wrapped up, we focused on how that shows up in motherhood. And that’s what I’m going to talk about today. If you’re not a parent, it doesn’t matter, the lessons still apply.
Here’s the thing. Here’s what makes this stuff, this gunk, fear, guilt and all of the things attached to it. So insidious. It happens in tiny everyday moments. Ones that feel too unimportant to draw your focus, but those moments pile up the frustration, the guilt, the blame, the self-blame. It all adds up.
When I was thinking about this, I was thinking about back in the time when my kids were little. I started flipping through some of my old journals, and I’ll tell you the truth, it blew me away. I can’t believe how different I am from the woman I was in 2008. I’m going to do something that I would have never imagined myself doing. In truth, I’m a really private person, but I’ve learned over the years that stories matter, and that sharing them is how we connect, and how we learn, and how we grow.
If you’ll bear with me, I might stumble here and there, because I’m actually going to read to you. I’m going to read an excerpt from my journal in 2008 when the kids were young. It’s December 9th, 2008, this journal entry. “I feel the rumble of the school bus minutes before it appears. Max and Lila are always amused at this rare gift. Not this morning, though. This has been one of those mornings, and I can see its effect on their beautiful faces. Max can barely look at me as I lean in to kiss him goodbye. I’m still choking back the tears of frustration and guilt. ‘Bye mom,’ he yells, not turning back as he heads for the bus. Like me, the guilt won’t let him leave without some attempts to alleviate the sour taste of chaos. Lila, on the other hand, grabs my face with both hands and kisses it, looking right into my eyes for assurance that everything is okay.”
“Have a great day,’ I say. Hopefully, my chipper tone has made up for the fact that I’m crying. She skips up the driveway behind her brother and I closed the door before I started to really sob. The morning had collapsed into the all too familiar frenzy of finding shoes, pulling through snarls, and arguing over what each of them wanted to have for breakfast. Them, quietly dawdling in their rooms doing God knows what while I scream increments of time from the bottom of the stairs. ’15 minutes until the bus. Are your teeth brushed? Shoes on? I’m really late for work. I can’t do it all myself this morning.’ Nothing. There is no response. The deaf man next door I’m sure has heard me, but the two of them who can hear me whisper something they should not hear from two rooms away, remain mute, and evidently, completely impervious to me.”
“I snap, the guttural scream with tears squirting from the corners of my eyes. ‘Maxwell John, are these your pants?’ He comes running. They both do. They get that we’ve moved up to the next level. ‘How can you not have put your pants on yet, the bus will be here in five minutes?’ I’m visibly shaken as I heard them into the bathroom to wash the marker off their faces. They hop on one foot hurrying on their boots. Here it comes. They know it, and I know it. The tearful talk laden with guilt and pleading for help.”
“I sit on the bottom step looking like a lunatic in my giant yellow bathrobe. My face, blotched from crying, my hair yet uncombed as they put on their coats and backpacks. I list off all the things I did this morning, and asked them if they thought there were any items on that list that they were capable of helping with. ‘Most of them,’ is Max’s sullen reply.”
“Then do you think we could all work together in the mornings?’ This is good parenting, or it would be if I could hold back the tears, if I hadn’t laid all the guilt on them, but I can’t. And I did. So I’m left here watching them get on the bus feeling all-at-once disrespectfully taken for granted and not worthy of their respect.”
Reading this back. I can feel it so deeply that it hurts my stomach, the fear and guilt holding you back. This was 12 years ago, and nothing really happened. The kids were fine, they are fine. I was fine, I am fine. This is a story about a tiny morning like the hubbub to go to school, but that’s not how I felt then. I had lost myself in that role of parenting, and the stories and the guilt were so heavy for me that I can feel it to this day even though my life is completely different than what it was then.
When we come back from a really quick break, I’m going to share some tips with you of how I kind of made my way from then to now, and how you can hold onto your identity, or reclaim the one that you’ve lost all while being the kind of mom, or person, and so any role that you want to be, and I’ll be giving you my fact versus story tool. We’ll talk more about fear and guilt holding you back.
Before we go, as I mentioned a moment ago, we all learn so much from stories, and every story that we tell has a chance to impact someone’s life. So if you’ve got one, if there’s something that you can share with the rest of our listeners that will make them think, or see themselves, or laugh, please reach out. Tell me your story. You can connect with me at wendyperrotti.com, or glimpseinside.superpowerexperts.com. We’ll be back in a flash.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
Podcast: Play in new window
