REWILD + FREE - Unlearning Hustle Culture and Rewiring my Nervous System

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

Long overdue solo episode! It's just me this week, giving you a little life update and sharing my own musings related to prioritizing rest, understanding my menstrual cycle and navigating my own nervous system health. In this episode , I share the humbling lesson I'm currently learning about saying no, setting boundaries, and not feeling like a failure for not meeting expectations. I also dive into my experience since restarting my menstrual cycle postpartum and how it's been a game changer for understanding my energy shifts throughout the month. And I discuss the concept of healing as an upward spiral and how revisiting triggers and moments of resistance indicate growth and progress!  I reflect on the discomforts in finding calm and ease in my life as a stay-at-home mom, podcaster, and business owner, and how it's positively impacted my nervous system. Connect with Nicole on IG (@nicolepasveer)Apply to be a guest on the podcast hereSupport the showConnect with Nicole on IG (@nicolepasveer) Want to be a guest on the podcast? Fill out this form

Welcome to the Not Just a Mom Show, where we have open and honest conversations about the vulnerabilities and the victories within entrepreneurship and new motherhood. If we haven't met yet, I'm Nicole Pazvir and I'm going to be your host. Here on the show, we don't subscribe to perfection. In fact, being present is the new perfect and showing up messy is the new norm. We are worthy, just as we are, as all that we are, not just the label we put on ourselves. We are more than just a mom, and I'm so glad you're here. So it's kind of funny. I don't know if anyone noticed, there wasn't a Not Just a Mom podcast episode

last week. And I'd love to come on here and tell you this whole story of why that didn't happen. But the funny part of it is, is that literally last week, the day before Tuesday, which is podcast day, I was walking to my mom's house and I wanted to take you guys on a walk and talk. And so I was recording myself talk on my walk and I was going on and on and on about how I've been really navigating all the shoulds that come with starting a podcast and the shoulds of showing up weekly and how I really didn't want to ever force or have like the pressures of the consistency of podcasting to be a thing. I've really wanted to allow this whole process to be fun and easeful and peaceful and not something else on my to-do list. And so I was kind of playing around with, okay, well, maybe I'm just going to skip a week. Like,

I have a lot going on. We had a very chaotic June. And so just leading into July, I was kind of just getting my feet back on the ground and navigating, just getting back into some sort of rhythm. And so I really tossed with the idea of just not having a podcast that week. And instead, I flip-flopped a couple times, but instead came to the conclusion, no, you know what, the part that feels heavy is having to edit a podcast. So even though I have some recordings with some special guests batched, the heaviness and the pressure that I was feeling to have to carve out time to edit those is what was taking the fun out of it. So instead, I told myself, no, you know what?

Like, I do have the capacity to record something. I'm on this walk. I'm just going to start recording what I want to say. And I talked for a whole 17 minutes and then got to my mom's house and Aubrey saw the house. So I couldn't like keep walking, even though I wasn't done talking. We had to go into my mom's house and I thought, okay, that's fine. Like I'll just finish recording when I walk back home. But then it ended up like thunderstorming that afternoon. And so my husband had to come pick us up and I just never had time that night to,

I shouldn't say I didn't have time. I didn't want to make time to finish recording. So I have like half an episode recorded and now it's a week later and I don't even want to use that anymore. Anyways, all this to say that it was a really humbling lesson or practice for myself to just say no, even though it's kind of something I committed to and really balancing this idea of just because I've kind of committed to something and that something being like a weekly podcast episode doesn't mean that I'm failing if I don't meet that expectation. And that's something that is kind of a hard pill for me to swallow being a former like overachiever and perfectionist and people pleaser like I don't want to let y'all down and um that's kind of my ego talking and my ego thinking that I have all these listeners that

are counting on me and they wake up first thing Tuesday morning to come listen to a not just a mom podcast episode and um that is likely not true I have this feeling that not very many people even noticed there wasn't an episode. And even if you did, you probably just thought, oh, Nicole's busy. Like she's probably just busy momming. And really that was the truth. I was just busy momming. I was prioritizing time with family that evening. So I never finished recording that 17 minute ramble that I was on um and yeah I just kind of gave myself permission that week to just not have a podcast what's extra cool about that is we are knees deep inside recalibrate so myself and four other women have been meeting weekly to mastermind on all things motherhood and entrepreneurship. It's been amazing. And each week we have a weekly challenge

or a weekly intention. And so last week's intention was to intentionally find five things to say no to. And I love this practice because it really helps you just become conscious and aware of how you're spending your time. And it also allows you to kind of reorient to your values and reset to what's actually important to you and kind of tidy up the blurriness that maybe some of your boundaries have gotten. So saying no to hustling or staying up late that Monday night to get a podcast episode ready for you guys on Tuesday was a really good opportunity for me. And now here we are. We are a week later. It is Monday again. It is literally a quarter to eight and I will likely be dropping this episode. So it's live for you guys tomorrow morning. So literally like less than 12 hours from now and all day. Again, I was weighing with

this idea of, you know what, I still am not finished editing. I don't want to edit. I don't want to spend my night editing. I'd rather kind of just do chunks of editing instead of doing a whole episode. And I've also been wanting to incorporate more solo episodes. That's another thing is the past, I think the past four or five podcast episodes have been me with a guest. And while I love those conversations, it's also really important to me that the podcast has just some of my own reflections and my own musings and my own whatever comes up. So, yeah, it was important to me that it wasn't going to be another guest episode. And, yeah, all day I was thinking, oh, it's going to be another week.

We're just going to skip two weeks. That's fine. Life has been crazy. We were out of town this weekend for not one, but two different weddings. We drove about two hours north of us to attend one of my best friend's weddings. I was in her bridal party, so we were there all day Friday to help set up. And then Saturday morning, I was getting ready with the bridal party so we were there all day Friday to help set up and then Saturday morning I was getting ready with the bridal party and then of course the ceremony and the pictures and all of

that but then we also had another wedding one of Dylan's best friends they were also getting married that day so we had to make a really hard choice and we didn't want to say no to either so we ended up splitting our time and we spent the first half of the day with my friend at her wedding and the second half of the day at Dylan's friend's wedding. And I'm so glad we were able to make both work because I think I would have, I think my FOMO is just too, too strong to not be able to witness both couples on their big day. So anyways, that was a really long day for us and for Aubrey. I think in total, we probably spent like, I don't even know, like six or seven hours in the car in less than like a 48-hour period, which I know doesn't sound like a lot, but it felt like a lot. And it's not always

fun with a toddler. She was a trooper though. She's the life of the party. She loved the dance floor. It's really cute. And then we came back Sunday morning and then I was able to attend my friend's bridal shower. So it was a very busy weekend. And I really didn't think I was going to be putting out an episode this week. And I was giving myself a massive dose of self-compassion for just the busyness of life and really just paying attention to where my energy is going instead of thinking, oh, Nicole, you suck. You aren't fulfilling your commitment to weekly episodes. I've kind of been reframing that and really recognizing and honoring myself for where I've been putting my time. And I think summer is busy for everyone, but these past weeks have been especially busy

for us. Like I said, the weddings this weekend, and then just like the days leading up to the wedding, of course, all the last minute things you have to do to prepare. I mean, getting cards and gifts and packing for the family and making sure the dogs were in order for where they were staying. It's all the things. I know whoever is listening, you know what I'm talking about. And if you are also the default parent when it comes to those things, you definitely know what I'm talking about. And if you are also the default parent, when it comes to those things, you definitely know what I'm talking about. And then previous

to that, it was just getting over like the hangover of June. And if you missed some of the updates on my Instagram account, poor Aubrey was sick for a good two weeks of June. We ended up actually taking her to the hospital, not once, not twice, but three times. Long story short, she ended up having a UTI, but she wasn't really responding to the antibiotics. She also ended up having like a five or six day long high fever. And that wasn't fun. We are usually pretty calm when it comes to fevers. I don't react quickly. I'm a believer that fevers are a good thing and it means the immune system is working. And so we really just try to support her and keep her comfortable. And for us, that meant tons of skin to skin, meant tons of breastfeeding. She was basically nursing like around the clock.

And even though I knew her temperature was getting kind of scary high, I was still confident in her body's ability to do the good work and also my body's ability to help her kind of just like regulate her temperature and stay safe. And the last thing I wanted to do was go wait in like a hospital waiting room when I knew what was best in that moment was probably that skin to skin and around the clock nursing. So we didn't end up taking her in until like day three or four of that fever. And at that point, it was more for concerns about dehydration because she wasn't nursing as well. And then also at that point, I kind of had a hunch that it wasn't just like a GI bug. It was probably something a little bit more severe. And I kind of had a hunch that it might be a UTI and thought that we might actually need medical attention at that point. So like I said, long story short, she had a UTI, wasn't responsive to the antibiotics. We ended up having to go back to the

hospital a second time and then a third time to see an infectious disease doctor. Ended up being the right, what's the word, like the right class of antibiotics. So we didn't need to switch her medication. We just had to be more patient. And that was hard because nobody wants to see your kid sick. And I think, yeah, it was an interesting just experience as a whole, navigating my own emotions. At the time, I was also ovulating and I've really enjoyed getting more in tune with my menstrual cycle and just kind of witnessing my energy shifts and my creativity and my confidence and just kind of all the things that happen throughout a woman's cycle I'm actually paying attention to and I've never done that um I previous to getting pregnant I was on birth control and then had an IUD in literally just a couple months before

we conceived Aubrey so I honestly can't even remember the last time I honestly don't even know that there really would have been a time because I was actually put on birth control quite early, not due to sexual activity, but because of my mom's history with endometriosis and other things. At the time, my family doctor thought that birth control was a good choice, I guess. And I mean, knowing what I know now, I probably wouldn't have made that choice. And I feel like, yeah, I think there's just a lot more talk about kind of the side effects of birth control and all the things that it does to our body and the disruption to our natural hormones and just all of that. And so, yeah, this has literally been like, since I got my period back since having Aubrey and that, and that took a long time in itself. I don't think I, I think I was,

oh geez, it was, okay, wait a minute. Math, math is hard. Aubrey is 21 months right now and I think this is my fourth cycle back so I got my period back at like 17 or 18 months postpartum um I was one of the lucky ones if you want to call me that but the period I'd say like after 12 months like 12 to 17 months I literally felt like like the blind leading the blind. I had been doing a lot of, I was, I was, I was doing, I was spending a lot of time educating myself on the menstrual cycle. And I knew when I was going to get my cycle back, I wanted to try cycle syncing. And I knew I wasn't going to be going on any birth control or anything like that. Um, so I was actually patiently waiting for my cycle to return because I really wanted to start um just yeah like noticing the shifts in energy throughout the month and being able to

work smarter not harder for lack of a better word and so it felt like a long wait. And then it finally did come. And it has been, I'd say, like a game changer in terms of being able to offer myself some self-compassion. Because instead of just thinking I'm having a bad day or, I don't know, like, I don't even know. Like, it's just, I don't even know how to explain this it's it's been empowering to be able to notice the patterns that come with where I'm at in my cycle and the mood shifts energy shifts the the mind chatter like noticing that my inner critic is much louder in my follicular phase and being able to name it as that instead of thinking like, man, like I'm like a really

shitty person or I am failing. Like instead of actually believing whatever my inner critic is saying, I can actually just like understand that, okay, wait a minute, I'm in my follicular phase, like this makes sense, all those things. So it's offered me this invitation, I guess, to be more self-compassionate with myself and also just like love on myself more and really pay attention to what my body's needs are. So for example, like when I am in my menstrual cycle and I have my bleed, like I'm really paying attention to when I'm tired or when I feel like I just need to lay down. And instead of just thinking, oh, Nicole, you're lazy. Or like, I don't even know whatever thoughts might come up. I can recognize that, no, like this makes sense.

Like this is what my body needs right now. And so I'm going to try to honor that as best as I can. Of course, it's challenging because our society doesn't really hold space for that. And obviously you can't just pause life because you have your period. And even though you want to go hide under the covers all day, there's things that still need to get done. So it's also been about balancing that and just trying to make space for little moments of extra TLC for myself. Anyways, back to the whole Aubrey getting sick in June and how that relates to my menstrual cycle. I was ovulating that week and I remember several times thinking, man, like what a waste of like ovulatory energy. I remember thinking like, man, this is usually when I try to record more podcasts. This is when I

might show my face on Instagram more. This is whatever. And I remember thinking like, man, I just have to like lay here and hold my kid and kind of just having to hold space for it all. The juxtaposition of, I don't want to be anywhere else. Like I love my job and I am so honored to be able to stay at home and just lay with my kid all day instead of having to go to work or having to send her to daycare or whatever the alternative might be, while also holding space for the frustrations that I couldn't show up for my business in the way that I was actually able to handle some of the instances in the hospital and being able to advocate for Aubrey and being able to like ask questions as confidently as I did and also being able to just have the energy to hold myself and our family through that very chaotic period is thanks to ovulating. So it's just kind of cool how it all worked out because I, yeah, like imagine had I had my, had I had my period that week and had I just wanted to

like lay in bed and do nothing, I would have been showing up as a completely different mother. And so it's kind of cool looking back and like, I'm grateful now that I was ovulating because it allowed me to show up, I think, in just a different state of mind too. Anyways, that's me going off on a little tangent. I'm trying to think like there's, I feel like there's been so much going on for me and like I said I really want to start doing more solo episodes I've kind of played around with the idea of doing solo Sunday and actually introducing a second episode each week so saving Tuesdays for like a guest interview and then Sundays as a solo and I might might do that. I might not. I don't know. I'm really giving myself the permission to make my own rules here. And if I do do that, that wouldn't be with

any sort of expectation or pressure on myself to do both weekly. It would just kind of create some structure in my mind because I do work well with structure. And also it gives you guys as the listeners kind of some structure in terms of what to expect or what to look forward to. So yeah, I'm playing around with that idea. I'm also playing around with maybe just like alternating. So one week is solo, one week is guest, or maybe I just keep doing what I'm doing and keep doing things on the fly. If it feels right to release a guest episode, then I will. If it feels right to record a solo episode less than 12 hours before the episode goes live, I will keep doing that. We'll see. I'm trying to think. There's,

I mean, so many different topics that I want to get into, but I think I want to save some of those ideas for future episodes where they can actually have their own episode. I think for this episode, I really just wanted to kind of give you all a life update on me and just kind of share some of the things I've been processing. So yeah, like I said, June was crazy. As you know, if you have been listening, I have launched Recalibrate, which is my group mastermind. And that has been super cool because it's the first time I've ever done something like this. So of course, the newness of it is bringing up things for me to work through. And one of the biggest things I think that I've been navigating, and I will share this because I think it's transferable to a lot of aspects in life. So

I have a feeling that even though you aren't having the same experience as me, you'll probably be able to pull out some common threads and relate it back to your own life. And that's this idea of being comfortable with things going well. And I think what I mean by that is more so how it can actually be uncomfortable when things are going well, because many of us, myself included, I'm raising my hand, have gotten so comfortable with being in this state of hustle and this survival mode and grinding and just kind of like running on overdrive and not listening to our body and just being go, go, go, do, do, do. And when we're living like that, we are kind of dismissing everything that our body is trying to communicate with us. And from a nervous system perspective, we are in a survival state. And

quite frankly, that is a waste of energy. That is no way to live. That is basically burnout. If you're not actually burnt out, then you're teetering on burnout. And that's obviously going to impact so many things in life. Your sleep, your hormones, your immunity, your sex drive, your everything. It's not good. And so, like I was saying, so many of us are so used to being in that state that it's actually uncomfortable and almost like unsettling to be in a state of calm and peace and ease because we have gotten so used to the chaos. And I think that's kind of what

I've been experiencing is the past couple months, um, asides from the hiccup of Aubrey's, um, sickness, things have been going pretty darn good. Um, I've kind of found my own rhythm with just the things I'm doing, the stay at home mom life, the podcast life, the growing a business life. And in no way am I saying that things are going perfect, but I feel like I, um, I don't even want to say that like, I'm not drowning anymore. Cause there's definitely still days where I feel like I'm drowning. But I feel like even on those days when I'm drowning, I know where my life raft is. And I feel confident in some of the tools that I've been using to save myself. But all this to say, like, things have been going pretty good. And I've actually been able to slow down and I feel like instead

of just running this sprint that's never ending, I'm actually pacing myself to like the pace of like a marathon or a hike and that has been great for my nervous system. I'm definitely feeling myself coming out of this survival state. I'm not in this like hustle mindset anymore, but, or I should say, and I'm also feeling completely unsettled with some of the slowness and the state of ease and the state of peace that I'm kind of telling myself I should be feeling is feeling very detached and disconnected because it's so unfamiliar um and I'm trying to I'm trying to explain this in a way that like is hopefully going to make sense it's almost like I shared this on Instagram but I'm going to bring this analogy back because I think I think it makes the most sense like So our nervous systems really, really, really like familiarity. And we, by default, will keep

going towards things that are familiar, even if they're not good for us. And so in the context of like relationships, for example, we see this all the time, right? Where someone keeps going back to someone that isn't good for them and they keep running into toxic relationships. And that's because their nervous system is so familiar with that and doing something unfamiliar, breaking that cycle is actually harder because even though it's good for them, it's harder because it's not familiar. And so the analogy I like to bring into this conversation is ski tracks. And so when we think of skiing, like downhill skiing, obviously it's going to be a lot easier to just like ski down the hill with the tracks, like with the snow that's already flattened down versus having to carve your own tracks. And our nervous system is no different.

So when we are doing something that's unfamiliar, it is uncomfortable as heck, and it can be really easy to kind of move away from that because of the discomfort. And we kind of have to build our window of tolerance to be able to expand our ability to handle the newness. Even though it's likely good for us, it takes some time and it takes some work and it takes some perseverance to get through the initial discomfort. I think that's exactly what I've been going through is getting comfortable with the discomfort of the slowness. So even though this slowness and this stay at home mom life, this cycle sinking life that I'm trying to create is good for me, it's been very uncomfortable because my nervous system is so used to being go, go, go. the other thing with that is also just like unlearning a lot of the social constructs that come with like hustle culture and like the thing that's coming to mind is thinking of rest as this thing that needs to be earned or almost like this achievement for hard work or the grand prize for suffering. And so like, yeah, I've had to unlearn that and really give myself permission that it's okay to

rest and that like rest doesn't have to be earned and rest isn't something I have to work towards. I am worthy of just resting because rest is good for me. And again, bringing this back to the menstrual cycle and some of the cycle syncing stuff I've kind of been trying to incorporate, that's been really challenging during menstruation because I guess like intuitively, I know that my body is asking for rest, but logically, I also know how long my to-do list is. And logically, I also see just all the things that aren't going to get done if I'm laying in bed resting. And so I've really had to navigate the duality of all of that and get comfortable with resting, even though it's uncomfortable. I hope that makes sense.

I feel like I just like used a bunch of the same words over and over and over again. Anyways, just yeah, to like summarize, I guess I just want to say that if you are feeling uncomfortable with like, just like something that's new, even though it's good for you, it makes sense because our nervous systems go towards things that are familiar. And something that I've been kind of playing around with is just like this idea of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable because when you are uncomfortable, it means that you are kind of meeting your edges. And the more times we can meet our edges, especially if we are supported and safe and secure and nourished,

then we're actually able to expand that window of tolerance and that capacity and that threshold for holding space for whatever it is you're working through. And this is what healing is. There is no finish line to healing. It's just about kind of like leveling up. And man, I'm going in like so many tangents right now, but I hope this is making sense. And thinking of healing as like this upward spiral. And so it will feel like some of the same things, some of the same triggers, if you will, or moments of resistance keep showing up in your life. And you might be thinking, oh man, why is this coming up again? I thought I worked through it.

And it's actually like, yeah, you did work through it, but now you were at a different place and it's coming up again, but you are on this upward spiral. So even though you're seeing it again, you're in a different place, you have different perspective, you have different tools, different strategies, different resources, and you get to level up. I hope that visualization makes sense. And it's funny because you can only hear me, you can't see me, but I'm like motioning this upward spiral with my hand. And I probably look like an idiot if someone was watching me and not hearing what I have to say. Anyways, man, we just talked about a lot. Menstrual cycle, nervous system, healing, my kid having UTI, podcast recordings

and sheds. I hope something from this episode lands for you. I hope there's something that you can translate to your own life and either have it be a source of inspiration or a moment of solidarity, whatever it is. And if it doesn't, I am still glad that you're here. I'm still glad you listened. I hope you tune in to whatever episode comes next. And yeah, I'm going to wrap it up here. I have loved creating this podcast for you guys. I hope you've loved listening and that's it for now. Okay, before you go, I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode. If you were thinking of anyone while listening, please send it their way. And if anything

resonated with you or you love these conversations please subscribe and leave a review this really helps the podcast algorithms put my show in front of more people just like you and the last thing I would love nothing more than hearing from you so say hi dm me on instagram and give me a follow at NicolePasvir. Until next time.