REWILD + FREE - Watered Down and Redefining Self-Worth: My career path up until now and how I'm starting to live my most potent life

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

In this solo episode, I pretend we are on a first date and begin unloading my life story with you!  I discuss the pressure I put on myself during high-school and university to get good grades and pick a "successful" career path .  Looking back now, it's so easy to see I spent a lot of those years worried about my reputation and held onto the belief that my worth was measured on my achievements... and that "achieving" equaled success. Since becoming a mom, it's become clear to me how strong my overachieving/perfectionist/people pleasing tendencies were... it's given me opportunity to make different choices and start forming my own identity!   For the first time ever, I'm doing things because I want to, instead of because it's expected of me!  If you like what you see (um hear?) so far, or resonate to anything I've shared, please let me know. I'd also love if subscribe to the show and leave a rating/review! DM me over on IG with a screenshot of your review so I don't miss it. Since my love language is words of affirmation, it will truly make my day ♡ If you're interested in being on the show and have a conversation idea you'd like to bring forward, fill out this form Support 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. My hope is that this podcast serves as a safe space for me and inspiration for you to stop living life watered down. Together, we will uncover versions of our most potent selves where we show up unapologetically, intentionally, and without filter. 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. I just want to preface this by saying I have no idea what I'm doing. The last episode I recorded, I was in my bathtub, and I thought because I had a fancy mic, things would be fine. But obviously things weren't fine because it sounded like I was in a cave. Anyways, this time, I'm actually laying in bed while my daughter naps beside me so the acoustics should be a lot better since i'm surrounded by a mattress and pillows and blankets but yeah i don't know what i'm doing. I'm gonna... Yeah. I've also been putting off

coming to actually record this episode because I've been stuck on the editing. I'm not worried about that anymore. I'm just gonna move forward and show up and basically come do what I've been intending to do. And so, yeah, I thought for this episode, which by the way, welcome to episode two of Not Just a Mom, I thought for this episode, we kind of treat it like a first date. Obviously, I won't get to learn anything about you, but here's an opportunity for you to get to know me a bit better and decide if you want to keep hanging out with me or not. And so yeah, let's just get into it. I have no idea how deep I'm going to get, but we'll see. We'll see what rolls off the tongue.

So I thought I'd first share a little bit about my childhood, I guess. I'm an only child and my parents are divorced. So I grew up kind of back and forth, sometimes at my mom's house and sometimes at my dad's house. And thankfully, they've always been very civil. They're actually in a really good place now. My mom's remarried, but they are so civil that like they were both at my wedding and like we do Christmas all together. And the funniest thing is when we go on vacation with my mom and my stepdad, my dad actually house sits for them and watches their dogs so yeah that's how civil they are um they also share a netflix account and the profile you know how on netflix

you can each have your own profile my dad's profile says um the first husband so yeah they're good it's great it's nice to have two parents even though they don't um they're not they're not married they're I never grew up with mom and dad in the same house they've they've grown to be very respectful of each other it wasn't always the case um maybe more on that in future episodes but yeah thought I would share because it's funny um and it's weird my family's weird anyways only child very small extended family my mom was actually adopted and so we don't know we aren't in touch with her family. And then my dad, he has one sister. And so I grew up with her kids, my three cousins. But other than that, really no other family members around. Growing up, I didn't have any grandparents in my cousins. And so, um, yeah, anyways, I

switched schools in grade four and that doesn't matter. I don't need to get into that. Uh, throughout high school, I actually throughout all of school, I was always an overachiever always got good grades basically a teacher's pet if you think of me as like a dog I was like a golden retriever and just always ready to please and just super super loyal I'm also an Enneagram type six so the loyalty makes a lot of sense. But in school, the overachieving tendencies put a lot of pressure on my back. And the thing is, is I never really had that pressure from my parents. It was always internal. It was always coming from me. And I realize now that there's maybe some deep wounds and some trauma related to my own worthiness in there.

But it's always confused me because it was never like my mom or dad harping on me to get better grades. It was always me. If I got like an 80 on a test, I would be down on myself because I didn't get a 90 or 100. And then in high school, I felt tons of pressure to obviously get into university or college, but more importantly, choose the right program. And I remember thinking that in order to be successful in life, you needed to go to post-secondary and you needed to get a quote-unquote good career. And up until now, those beliefs ran pretty deep. I really didn't see it as any other way.

And I've realized now that I've actually had a lot of judgment towards people that didn't go that route I thought well why didn't they just like try harder in school or like why didn't they um spend as much time I don't even know like those thoughts don't even make sense to me and I am detaching from those beliefs now so it's not those beliefs aren't true for me anymore anyways back to my high school days um I wouldn't say I was the popular kid by any means but I also wasn't like super nerdy either I was kind of just a fly on the wall if I'm being honest um my now husband um and I have actually known each other since grade four and started dating technically in grade nine and so we were together throughout

high school and really like our friend groups kind of just morphed together. So I really didn't have like my own identity. And in the moment, like that was safe and that was comfortable for me. Looking back now, I think that's really shaped me into who I am today and who I am, quite frankly, feels pretty lost, hence the birth of this podcast and just relearning and discovering my identity again as not just a mom. But yeah, anyways, so high school for me, it wasn't like the best time, but it also wasn't the worst. I don't really have any of those really harsh stories of being bullied or anything like that, thankfully. I know that was happening, and I hope I wasn't really a part of it. But like I said, just a lot of pressure to move ahead in my life and make the right choices, especially in regards to university. And so I remember never really being sure on what I wanted to be when I grew up. I, for a long time, thought maybe like architecture or civil engineering would be cool.

But I love people and I didn't want to just be stuck in a cubicle, playing around with whatever engineers do. I have one of my best friends is an engineer. I don't know what she does all day. For a while, I think she actually got to color windmills. So that's pretty cool. But I just always thought that I needed or wanted a job that would have more interaction with people. And I thought about psychology for a bit or social work but my concern with those degrees is that I wouldn't have a job at the end of the four-year degree I was worried I would need to continue on and take a master's program or something and I just wasn't interested in going to school for that much longer I wanted it to be efficient so in head, I needed a four-year degree that was going

to get me a job at the end. And funny enough, like nursing was actually never on my radar. I was actually interested in med school, which goes against everything I just said about wanting a four-year degree. But ultimately, out of high school, I did apply for Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience. I was really fascinated in the brain and psychology and neuroscience just felt like a really great fit. And I had in my head that that was going to be my pre-med and I was going to go to med school. And I kid you not, literally, I was accepted into university. And literally, the weekend before I was supposed to start classes, I woke up with just this really clear idea that that was not the path I was supposed to be on. And just this really clear vision that

that's not actually what I wanted. And I didn't want to be in school for that long. And I wanted to be able to... Sorry, Aubrey just took a really deep breath. She's currently attached to my boob and sleeping. So, sorry. This is life with a toddler. And showing up messy. Here I am. Here we are. Anyways. Yeah, I just had it. I just had a really clear vision that that didn't make sense for me.

I wanted a family. I knew Dylan and I were going to get married eventually. And kids were in the future at some point. Although I should also say that I also never envisioned myself as like a stay at home mom or, um, that like, um, traditional like housewife with tons of kids. I, I don't know what I envisioned. I honestly, looking back, like, I envisioned I honestly looking back like I think I had a really really hard time looking past anywhere from like three to five years ahead of me

I've always been a planner in the sense that I feel like I'm always kind of stuck looking ahead and that's brought me a lot of anxiety I'm not really great at being in the present moment that's something I'm always kind of stuck looking ahead and that's brought me a lot of anxiety. I'm not really great at being in the present moment. That's something I'm really working on. But as much as I'd be stuck in the future, I really was never more than a couple steps ahead. So I had a really hard time actually envisioning what life could look like past like two, three, four years. So other than knowing that dylan and i were going to get married one day and we'd have dogs and a house and i mean just kind of the

typical north american family that we've been fed to believe is successful right mom and dad both with respectful jobs probably two kids a girl and a boy taking yearly if not biannual family vacations and like a summer cottage all those things that's kind of what I pictured but that was never really my own imagination and my own dream. That was just society's dream for me. And I realized that's actually a common theme in my life of me being, I guess, like victimized to society's expectations from me. And so this is exactly when I kind of look back, this is a big part of where it all started was me going to university and doing the things that I thought I had to do to be successful. So anyways, I digress a little bit.

Basically, the weekend before I was supposed to start my Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience degree, I had this giant epiphany that this just didn't feel right. I shouldn't be a doctor. Being a doctor doesn't feel right. I shouldn't be a doctor. Being a doctor doesn't make sense once you actually go to med school and then start your residency and then build your practice. Like I'm going to be 30 something and it just doesn't line up well with having kids and raising a family. So obviously there was always some part of me that wanted to be a mom. So I quickly dropped out of all the classes I was registered for and tried to swap into just some general studies. And I was actually able to do that. And so for that year, I took general studies and my new game plan was to get

into nursing. And at that time, nursing was really, really competitive. And so I didn't know if I would get in or not. Long story short, I did. And my plan was that the general studies courses I could take would transfer over and hopefully lighten my load in nursing school. That didn't ultimately pan out exactly as I wanted. And really, none of this actually matters. The point of the story here is that, again, I was trying to pick a job in a career that I thought was what my parents and society and everyone around me would define as successful. And I was always told that, oh, like the world is your oyster as a nurse. There's just so many different routes you can take, obviously so many different areas you can work in, and so many different places you can work. So even though I knew I didn't like the idea being say your stereotypical emergency room nurse I was just kind of having faith that I would find

an area that I did like and so throughout nursing school I honestly hated basically every minute of it I made some really awesome friends through my program, but actual school, I love learning, but hated like my nursing clinical rotations, like actually being in the hospital. It just never felt right to me. Meanwhile, my peers would be like, oh, I love nursing. I've wanted to be a nurse my whole life. Like that was just never my story. And again, I was trying to just mold into this version of a successful woman that I thought society wanted from me. And again, I did great in nursing school.

I had good grades. I obviously passed and graduated. I ended up sort of liking mental health. And that's no surprise since I was interested in psychology and neuroscience. So mental health ended up being where I did my final focus, my last practicum. And that's ultimately where I got a job after I graduated. So for the entirety of my nursing career, I actually worked in geriatric mental health. And there were aspects of it that I really did like. And then there were aspects of it that I absolutely hated. And again, I had a really hard time seeing past a couple years. I also hate being uncomfortable. And so the thought of trying anything new or yeah just changing

the direction as a nurse I was going because I had essentially lost a lot of my skills by being in mental health you you just aren't doing nurse-y things right I didn't I didn't insert IVs or um geez like I'm so out of nursing that I don't even know what a nurse does so funny looking back while working on the unit I was very respected I ended up being uh charge nurse, like within a couple years. So basically, like the youngest charge nurse on the unit. And that alone was a ton of pressure. I still felt just really small. I didn't feel like I had the experience and I didn't feel like I had the knowledge or the confidence to be in charge and be a leader on the unit but I was always seen as that so I kind of faked it till I made it I guess

a part of me always cringed at the treatment that we were giving our patients. Obviously, it was an acute care setting and people were coming in, in distress and needing like immediate help. And the way to do that in, in the mental health world is with drugs. So a lot of times we were giving people medication that would completely flatten them out and kind of just make them numb to the world and to themselves. And that never really made sense to me. I felt like everything we were doing was just a band-aid and I could see really clearly that we were, we as in like the healthcare system, were just avoiding the root cause. And I hated that. I felt like in nursing school, that like this next generation of nurses us my graduating class is going to change the world and all these things and then once you actually get a real job and are put into the system you realize that like that's not really possible because the

system is just so much bigger anyways so kind of spidey sensors were kind of already tingling there, but like this just doesn't seem right. Our healthcare system just felt super rocky, especially being in it and seeing all the gaps. The gaps were just bigger as I was involved in it. And that didn't feel good to me. And then COVID hit, the pandemic. And as you all know, the healthcare system was a shit show. And again, working with geriatrics and senior population, they were really impacted. Loved ones weren't allowed to come visit on the unit. And there was just a lot of things that I consistently went home thinking this isn't right this isn't right and it was just this big mess of things like going against my morals but feeling like well this is my job so I have to do it and this like internal debate within

and as you can imagine that's super exhausting mentally emotionally what I didn't realize is the physical stress that it also put on me and the the stress the tension that my body was holding I really didn't understand all that until I stepped away from it and my body could actually breathe again anyways I don, I honestly didn't know how deep I would get into this, but, um, I feel like if this was an actual first date, I'd be scaring a lot of people away right now. Uh, anyways, um, so anyways, I got pregnant, pregnant um during the pandemic and kind of thought okay this is maybe my out like part of me I think a tiny part of me was like okay best case scenario like I love motherhood and Dylan and I are okay financially that like I can just stay home

for a couple years worst case scenario I thought, I won't love motherhood or financially. I'll need to go back to work. And nursing is great because you can just work casual or part time. And as much as I hate shift work, shift work sometimes works out nice in terms of child care in the sense that Dylan, my husband, I don't know. Did I mention his name's Dylan? My husband's name is Dylan. Dylan could watch our daughter in like the evenings or the weekends. So I thought, okay, cool. Like, as far as jobs go, this is a reasonably easy job to go back to as a mom. What I wasn't thinking about was the fact that walking away from nursing, like walking away from a shift and how exhausted I was and just like how mentally taxing it was, how that would compound with mothering.

And so once I actually had a kid and once I became a mother, I realized quite early on that there's no way I could go back. There's absolutely no way that I could be a good mom and a good nurse because I would literally utilize and extinguish all of my patience at work. So if I would come home, there's no way that I would have the mental capacity to be a patient, kind, compassionate mother. And so I realized very early on in my world I just yeah there was just no way and I don't think I really made that clear to Dylan I think I still kind of kept it as just like a dream like if we're okay financially or like if I can find something else and meanwhile in my head I was like there's there's absolutely no way like so deep down I knew that I wouldn't be going back and that I'd be finding something else. But I didn't know what that something else would be. And then without getting into like my birth story and my pregnancy experience and my postpartum journey I will say that motherhood rocked me walking into motherhood really

pregnancy rocked me my entire life I've as I said been like an overachiever and if I just try hard enough or do enough things I've been able to get the outcome that I desire and in pregnancy and birth and motherhood it doesn't work that way and it's not that I failed or like fell flat on my face because from the outside world I think people people probably perceived it as though I was thriving and I've gotten comments that oh like motherhood looks good on you and what people don't know is I felt like the ground beneath me was literally taken away or crumbling and just left without any kind of safety or foundation. Because I built my life feeling my safety and foundation was based on my achievements and my success. So all this to say, this is where I'm at now. I officially resigned from my nursing job four months ago and will not be returning. Yeah, my maternity leave is over and I'm not returning.

And so here I am, I'm building a business of my own on the internet and I'm starting a podcast in my bedroom while my daughter nurses from my boob and so I share all this with you because I'm gonna go out on a whim and guess that although we don't have the same story, there's probably a lot of parallels between my journey so far and my experience through high school and university and choosing a career. I'm going to guess that you yourself can also find themes similar to mine in your own life where you felt like you've put more energy and attention into your reputation and to what people might think of you and to what society might be expecting of you. And now that I'm slowly coming out of it, and I thank motherhood for that because it gave me the opportunity to do some own healing and some own soul searching.

It's so clear to me now how watered down I was living my life and how I really didn't even know who I was because I was constantly making choices for other people. And anyways, so I'm hoping that by sharing my story here, it gives you some inspiration to maybe just reflect on your own experiences and your own journeys to where you are so far today and just take this as an opportunity that it doesn't need to be this way and that you deserve to live life your highest potential and you deserve to not dilute yourself anymore your voice matters your your truth matters and I think as moms it's really really easy to get swept up into motherhood and the role of motherhood and this isn't to say that that role isn't important it truly is the most important role in the world in my opinion but I think in order to be the best mothers, we have to heighten our own self-worth and have a deep understanding of our own true self and our own identity in order to raise sons and daughters with that same regard and that same self-worth. Anyways, I'm going to wrap up this episode here. I think I've just opened up a can of worms in multiple areas of my life that I would love to go deeper on in future

episodes. This was probably the most awkward first date ever, but if you choose to continue seeing me, I would love nothing more than for you to subscribe to this show and leave a review. When you do leave a review, please send me a message on Instagram at Nicole Pasvir with a screenshot of the review because Spotify and Apple podcasts are sometimes weird and they don't actually show the podcaster the reviews and I don't want to miss any kind words you have to say. The more I learn about my human design I'm a projector and so the more I learn I've come to understand that I do best when I wait for an invitation and I get energized when people kind of invite me to keep sharing. So your reviews are kind of an invitation for me to keep sharing and for me to keep

sharing my story and storytelling. My love language is also words of affirmation. So reviews truly do mean a lot to me and I don't want to miss them. Anyways, that's it for now. I will see you guys in the next episode.