Sense of Soul - Honoring Your Neediness

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Today on Sense of Soul Podcast we have Mara Glatzel she is an intuitive coach, writer, and Needy podcast host, a podcast about identifying, honoring, and advocating for your needs. She’s joining us today to tell us about her newly released book NEEDY, How to Advocate for Your Needs and Claim Your Sovereignty. As the title of her book suggests, Mara wants us to own the fact that we are needy humans – especially when we feel like we shouldn’t have needs or that they’re inconvenient.  As a mother of two, her sweet spot lies in helping others (many of whom are parents!) understand how to expand their realm of possibility as it relates to what is even possible to need. She believes that when we can learn how to honor our own needs, it is a beautiful act of self-love that models for others how to do the same for themselves.  You can find her, book, quiz and podcast all here at her website: https://www.maraglatzel.com https://www.theneedypodcast.com Follow her journey @maraglatzel Visit Sense of Soul at https://www.mysenseofsoul.com Do you want Ad Free episodes? Join our Sense of Soul Patreon, our community of seekers and lightworkers. Also recieve 50% off of Shanna’s Soul Immersion experience as a Patreon member, monthly Sacred circles, Shanna mini series, Sense of Soul merch and more. https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul  

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thanks so much for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. Did you know that as a member of Sense of Soul Patreon, you get ad-free episodes? You will also be able to join me in our monthly live circles, listen to my mini-series, and much more. And you will also be helping support this podcast so that I can continue to bring you inspiring episodes twice a week with amazing guests from around the world. You can also show me some love and rate, review, and subscribe from wherever you're listening. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today we have with us Mara Glatzel. She is an intuitive coach, a writer, and the host of the

Needy Podcast, a podcast about identifying, honoring, and advocating for your needs. Mara is joining us today to tell us about her newly released book, Needy, How to Advocate Your Needs and Claim Your Sovereignty. So welcome, Mara. Nice to be here. Yeah. Where are you at? I live on the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Oh, okay. Yeah. Where are you? I'm in Colorado. Oh, nice. In the suburbs of Denver. Awesome. Yeah. I'm excited. Is your book released at the end of February? Yeah. February 28th. That's so exciting.

I know. And I did hear that in your podcast, you're like, if you like my podcast, then you're going to like my book. It's like all your juice, all your tools. Yeah, it's really cool to have, actually, to have a book and say, you know, here is the whole first part, at least, of the work that I do with people in a very concrete, and, you know, I thought through it all, it's all been edited, it's all, you know, as perfect as I could make it. And, you know, I've grown, probably in the last year, maybe plus a little bit,

you know, where I'm teaching now is beyond, but it's like, the book is a good prerequisite, because I'm like, read this, and then, you know, then we'll talk versus teaching that same material over and over again, which I have been doing for a lot of years. Yes. How long have you been podcasting? Since I was pregnant with Freya, I think 20, maybe 2018. So, you know, I'm a little bit less than you, but I feel like I've grown so much, you know, I mean, sometimes I feel like I'm in college, it's like, this is my class, and I can't wait to learn from you, Miss Glatzel, and I'm your new student for the day. It's a blessing, it truly is. But I have grown so much. So everything at the beginning of my journey was so newborn when it came to many of the

concepts and topics that, you know, we were tackling that, you know, actually your listeners can probably see that you're growing and expanding. Yeah, it's a journey. Yeah, for sure. And a public one, too. I mean, I think that that's what's so interesting about listening to people's podcasts is you can really hear them changing. Yeah, I feel like I did not grow up with self-love. I did not grow up with self-trust.

I ended up in codependent relationships. And, you know, it was very powerful to break free of that. But it took a lot of, you know, self-realization and a lot of rewiring of the brain. Yeah. You know, I grew up seeing self-love as something that happened after you became who you were kind of quote unquote supposed to be when you would have earned your own love in such a way. And, you know, as a kid in a bigger body, that was always my body was always a problem to be fixed. And that I might love myself or I might even just live my life on the other side of that. So you know, from I think I went on my first diet when I was six, just the pursuit of changing how I looked so that my life would be, you know, so that my life would begin. And that feeling of, you know, when you love yourself,

then you will start taking care of yourself was very pervasive for me. And because I had never earned that love, I never got to really believing like I deserved a spot in my own life. I frankly don't care how you feel about yourself. You don't need to love I mean, I would love for you to love yourself, certainly, but you don't need to love yourself. Loving yourself isn't a prerequisite for taking care of your needs. You can start taking care of yourself because you are a human and a human body and because your life functions better and feels infinitely better when your needs are being met. Because I think we have to debunk that, that journey of, you know, I'm going to get to a point where I love myself and then it's going to be easy. It's going to be easy to set boundaries. It's going to be easy to

meet my needs. It's going to be easy to set boundaries, it's going to be easy to meet my needs, it's gonna be easy to take care of myself, because I'll somehow feel as though I deserve it. Well, I don't know anyone for whom that has worked, it certainly hasn't worked for me. And instead, I'm interested in thinking about how we can teach ourselves that we require love and that we require care through actively loving and caring for ourselves, even if it doesn't feel like it's coming from that connected place of, oh, I just love myself so much. So I'm going to set these boundaries to protect my time and my energy or, you know, whatever we imagine it's going to look like.

I don't think it has to look like that in order for us to really show up for ourselves in significant ways. You know, I feel like for myself, I was like, if everything looked okay on the outside, then the inside would fall suit. And that did not work out. Yeah. And I like to think about this work as creating something that feels infinitely better than, you know, how it looks. Sure. I mean, we may get some kind of aesthetic pleasure from that, certainly. But more often, at least for me, it was really that deep perfectionism of I am an expert on what is expected of me. I'm an expert on knowing what other people want from me, what success looks like, what will earn me maximum external validation. And frankly,

I don't care what's happening inside because I'm not getting graded on what's inside, right? I'm getting graded on what you can see of me. And so I got to a point in my life where there was such a dichotomy between that kind of perfected outside veneer and my own just crippling anxiety, self-doubt, burnout, neglect, all of the things that were going on inside. I got to such a place where I just, I couldn't do it anymore. And now doing this work, I find myself talking about how the quality of the felt experience of your life matters, right? So whatever it is that you're doing, how you experience whatever it is that you're doing matters. And I don't think I ever stopped to think about that for the first you know half of my life three quarters of my life I did what needed to be done and never slowed down enough to consider my

experience of it and certainly not enough to think about bringing in any kind of pleasure or enjoyment. And oftentimes, it's not a huge difference. You know, picking an outfit that feels really good, and you really enjoy versus something that, you know, is the closest to your hand. It's not, you know, these aren't these huge choices or putting your breakfast on a plate that's beautiful versus just, you know, I don't know, eating it off a paper towel or whatever these aren't these humongous decisions sometimes they are but more often they're these micro moments over the course of your daily life and it doesn't take more energy but it does take the intentionality to consider your experience of what you're doing. Do I want this in this mug or in this mug? Do I want this kind of flavor or that flavor? You know, am I cold? Do I need socks? What is going on with

me right now? And too often, we're really good at just pushing past that and bypassing our feelings about our lives. You're so right. You know, it's funny when you said that, because like, I just got this new mug. It's so pretty. And it feels good. It's got this smoothness right here.

Like if it was all like, I'm very sensory. So my hands are always looking for something to rub and to touch. And so that's a comfort experience for me and so that matters to me it feels comfortable and satisfying yeah right now you know I mean I'm getting older in fact when you're talking about what's where I'm like why did I wear the sweatshirt I'm getting older in fact when you're talking about what to wear I'm like why did I wear the sweatshirt I'm freaking hot right now I'm having hot flashes you know I'm in the end of my 40s and I and I also have allowed my hair to go gray it looks almost a year now

I'm embracing now and I'm not rejecting it and feel like if I was still on the path of seeking everything outside of me, then I wouldn't be where I'm at today when it comes to these transitions with hot flashes and sleepless nights. And even with that, the less I sleep in all the night, the more dreams that I remember. So I've been like dream journaling like crazy. It's actually been a good thing. You know, when you're accepting what is, change is inevitable. Yeah. Life is impermanent. Yeah.

What is so profound in that is just what is all that is true in your life, right? We can pretend in a million directions, we can pretend we're younger than we are, we can pretend we're in different bodies, we can pretend we're, you know, not impacted by chronic health issues, or we can, you know, we can pretend all kinds of things, but why and for what and to what end? Because the more that we're able to embrace what is, the more that we're able to kind of expand out and bloom out from there. I think that when we're in that place of judging ourselves or being pissed, and that's not to say that there's not grief involved, you know, with coming to terms with what's going on for you. an emotional honesty that you're not able to do if you are wanting to kind of exist instead in this illusion that you know if you just pretend that it's a different way then it just will be but it's but it's not it'll never be enough no you finally got to whatever you wanted and then all of a

sudden you want more you want more you want more it never ends there's no contentment which i feel is the opposite of needy is feeling content yeah you know i find needy is such a compelling i have this is why i named my book needy such a compelling concept for me because what does it really mean to be needy? Right. And I find that when we are willing to be with what is and we're willing to take responsibility for our needs, then we stop trying to outsource them to everyone around us, which for me aligns more with that kind of essential neediness that we can all conjure up in our minds. Like I'm making my needs everyone else's problem because I'm either unwilling or unable to take responsibility for them myself, myself, my many selves are not into it. But the more that we're able to really align ourselves and stand by our own side, I mean,

I am a very needy person, but I have a working relationship with my needs. I'm in conversation with them and meeting them and learning how to advocate for them increasingly clear ways. Because until we have that relationship it's like I really want I need this but what you really need is something else completely so that's why you have that most never satisfied thing because you're not your relationship with yourself isn't developed to the point where you really understand hey I need you to pick up your phone when I call

you is code for I need to know that I matter to you. And when you know that what you need is to know that you matter to somebody, you can say, this is what I need, whatever, picking up my phone call. I mean, that's a weird example, because it's nice, I guess, to pick up a phone call from somebody that you love. But the more direct we can get to what's the need underneath the need, the more that we're able to articulate that both with ourselves and with other people in ways that are clear and reachable and make that need be able to be met. Yeah. And it's so much responsibility you put on somebody when they are the ones to fulfill all of your needs.

And even worse is that when we become that person to like our children and other people as well, there's like the other side of it. You know, the person usually that is needy is often also the one that everybody needs something from. Yeah. Well, and because oftentimes that person presumes that because everybody needs them, there's no space for them to have needs themselves. People always say, parents, mothers in particular, always say to me, but, and I remember when I started doing this work, I did not have children and people were so quick to say to me, you know, when you have children, you'll understand you're never going to have another self-care moment again. And what I understood when I had children was here is this thing that is so important to me, more important to me than anything else in my life. And more than ever, I realize I am the vessel for my love and care for them.

If I'm not in good working order, what do I have to offer anybody? And that is a consequence I'm not willing to accept. So saying no to every single request that they have of me so that I can make sure that I have the capacity to say yes to them overall and to hold them and to be emotionally regulated enough. I have a six and a three year old. They are wild. They are just wild children. It takes a lot to hold them. It takes a lot of energy. And so, you know, I find that the more that I have on my plate that I care about, the more that my needs need to matter because I'm like, I'm it. I'm the bottom of the barrel for my ability to pour energy into all of these different parts of my life. My God. So I, I still work at the spa because I'm a body worker. I was a massage therapist. I've been for over a decade, and I don't really have time for it.

So I give it three hours on Sunday, every Sunday, and I've dedicated that for the past decade. And it's because my moms, my moms who come into my space for 50 minutes, they give themselves, and I just want to love on them because this is their 50 minutes of peace and self-care you know I can feel the tension that they're carrying from the month before that I've seen them I just want to love on them yeah yeah it's a lot it is challenging to take up space in your own life when you've

been socialized to believe that what you do for others and how you serve them is what is best about you, what makes you worthy, what makes you good. And it takes effort to unlearn that social conditioning and to start to occupy more space in your life. But also, what is your life for? Do you know, Mara, I used to have to lie to go get a massage. I believe it. Like, I'll be back. I'm going to go grocery shopping. Go run, get a massage, come back all looking shiny. No groceries. Relax. No questions. shiny no groceries relax no questions schedule a grocery pickup you know that always kills me because i did get to a point where i was like i'm going to get a massage because i deserve it and i need it i need it and i'm going to be a much better mother if i get this massage. At first, they were like, oh, how selfish of you, right?

You're not going to just do for me. And then after a while, after a few years, it was like, you should go get a massage, mom. And I was like, you're right. I should. If you don't do this, then really your children won't either. And it's generational. Well, and I want to see my kids asking for what they need. And we're in a time right now where both my kids are homesick today. And my partner is also sick. And they have been sick for the last two weeks with like

rotating illnesses. And I have this book coming out the end of February. So this is a really busy time for me. And it would be easy to say to myself, you know, don't be like, put it aside. It's selfish. You know, you have a whole sick family, all of this. But it's really important for me to have my kids see my mom did this thing. She wrote this book, and she's allowed to have times where she prioritizes her efforts. You know, we're coming off of a year in my family where my partner and I were taking care of their best friend who was terminally ill and passed away. It was a long year. And, you know, my kids during that long year saw me putting my work to the side because I was pretty

much solo parenting them and wanted to be, it was emotionally intense time. So I wanted to be kind of above and beyond emotionally available for them. So I wasn't working at night. I wasn't working in the morning, you know, I was getting enough sleep myself so that I could be there for them and doing very little work. And they saw that too, right? So I want them to see me in a multitude of different situations so that they can understand, you know, the way that we're in relationship with our needs changes depending on the circumstances in our lives at that moment. And it's not a static thing. There's no one right way to do it.

Because what's important is the way that you're in relationship with yourself. And fine-tuning your own ability to look at your life, to be with what is, and say, all right, this is what's going on right now. And that means I'm going to have to say no to a bunch of things. I'm going to get clear on what my priorities are and double down on that. And that it just reduces so much friction and so much overextending and so much confusion when we're able to really articulate, hey, this is what's going on. And based on this, this is how I'm structuring my energy expenditures. And I want my kids to see that. Not just to see a mom putting herself at the back, because there's other stuff going,

there's always going to be other stuff going on and instead i like to see that we're all taking turns it's like it's the best thing to show them you know i was really good at fake it till you make it and never showing my older children i did a better job never showing them that i was stressed or that i was feeling weak. It gets harder the more children you have. It's almost like running on burned fumes. And yeah, it's, it did. Cause I mean, you know, having four kids and at one point I had three kids in three different schools with a newborn. I barely even remember that year. I don't know. That was kind of like a very big year for me that I started to spiral out of control. You know, I didn't have any control of my life.

And I was a yes person. Then I became a no person. But then now I've become a yes and a no person. So I liked your chapter where it said, say no, say yes. Is that what it was? What is that chapter about? And why did you put both say no, say yes. Is that what it was? What is that chapter about? And why did you put both say no, say yes? Yeah. So that chapter is really about learning how to say no, and also coming to terms with the reality that when you say no to things you don't want to do, you have

the space to say yes to what you do want to do. Because too often, you know, I'll do workshops with people and they'll say, well, these are my values. And then we do a fun activity where I ask them to pull up their calendars for the last month and look to see if their values are represented there anywhere. And I mean, it's a gotcha moment because I already know the answer. I already know what's going to pan out there. And the reality is we're saying yes, we're saying yes, we're saying yes, again, for that external approval or that external validation or to make somebody else happy, even at the expense of our own happiness, our own comfort, and that you only have, you know, we're each of us is one person, one capacity, that capacity is finite, meaning you can only use that on a certain amount of things over the course of your day. And that's, that's it.

That's, that's what you've got. It's not this ever renewing resource where we can just do and do and do and do and do. And the more that we're able to say no to what we don't want to do, the more that we're able to say yes to what we do want to do. But here's the rub is when you get really good at this, you have to start saying no to the things you do want to do too because you know you end up at this point in my life I don't really say yes to things that I don't want to do anymore so I don't have that problem but I have all of these things I do want to do but I still have a limited capacity so I still sometimes have to say thank you so much for thinking of me. I really want to do it,

but I have already committed myself to this, this, and this place. And that's all I have the capacity for right now. Yeah. You know, I asked Elizabeth Schrader. She is a biblical scholar who she discovered a, a very important edit in the book of John that actually made a huge difference. And long story short, she discovered that Mary Magdalene is really not from Magdala. She is Mary Bethany. And she was called Mary the Magdalene. And you can find that on YouTube, Woman's Erased. And she's amazing.

So she responded and I was so disappointed because I wasn't because she said I'm practicing saying no right now because I'm overwhelmed I have a lot of stuff and I'm taking a break but I will say yes for the summer and I was so like oh my god I love this I was like so proud of her I love her even more. We think that, well, that codependency, that's what codependency is. You keep on saying yes, because you feel like everyone's going to love you. I definitely was that person. I was the model of that. But I got to a point that I was no longer honoring who I truly was. One, I think this is the really important part is that there's no

right or wrong answer. And, but too often when we start this conversation, we're underwater, right? We have just too much on our plates. And so we need to carve out some room to even figure out, to even have space to hear that voice that says, I actually really want to do this thing. And those those little yeses that we maybe want to squelch immediately, you know, I'll notice for myself, I am leading a retreat in Tuscany in October of this year. I'm really excited about it. I've been wanting to go there for a very long time. And somebody came to me and she runs a retreat company. Anyway, she basically was like, I want to invite you to teach, you'll teach and I'll run like all

of the logistics, which is a dream come true. And immediately though, I went to I have a three and a six year old. It's going to be the beginning of school. It's going to be all these things. I couldn't pop. I'm going to travel intern. All of a sudden it's been years since I got on an airplane. I travel internationally. I don't even have a passport.

I don't, you know, my passport's expired, all of this stuff. Right. And so if we're moving too quickly, it's just going to be all of the reasons why we should quote unquote should say no and then keep moving. But when we have less on our plate, we're able to sit with that nuance of, hey, there are so many logistical reasons and those are all going to need to be worked out in a thoughtful way. But the reality is this is a dream come true for me. I've been wanting this exact opportunity for so long. So maybe I can just be in this weird space of thinking about, is it possible to figure it out so that I can do this thing? But I think we don't even have the bandwidth for that nuance if we're just overloaded by stuff so true so we get to like clear some of

that out yeah move on out so i can make a really clear decision something that i've discovered recently because i see i feel like once i had that power to say no, it felt so good. I was like, Oh no, no. And no, I can say it. And I was like, I don't have to, right. I'm an adult, right. I was almost like I got to this point where I needed to, I was too much. There was no balance there, right? I went from being very yes to very no, and there was no balance. So I found the balance in the space. The space is where I found the balance. However, I have also found, just recently, I said yes, but it wasn't for me necessarily. It was for my children. It was for my son who's autistic. So I got invited to go to the Suicide Boy concert, which I know them.

I know Scott Arsenault. So I would maybe for him, because I love him dearly. However, I wouldn't go and hang out in the crowd. I wouldn't want to go to the kids or something. But my son, who is was autistic he's 19 he wanted to go and the minute he wanted to go I knew that I had to say yes for him it was like the sacrifice that I was going to make for him and girl I am so glad that I did I'll never forget that night

I've never seen him that way. So Mandy and so many people were like, I can't believe you went, right? I can't believe it. But even my other children, they're like, what? You know, and that was okay. Like, I didn't feel guilt about it. But I said, yes, because it wasn't for me. So I think that you always have to just kind of sit with how you feel. You said this before, you know, mine was a big yes. I love that. A part of this conversation is that a lot of very regular kind of relational situations are being branded as codependent now and this idea of if we ever do anything for every anyone other than ourselves then that's codependent which is i don't think is true you know we make i don't i i

don't care really why we make decisions i just care that we're making them intentionally and thoughtfully right and? And examining places, you know, sometimes we say yes when we want to say no, because we feel as though we have to. Okay, why? What's going on there? Or we're worried that other people will be mad at us or, you know, or, or, or, or, or. But I think a healthy part of being in relationship with other people is that sometimes we're saying yes to things because we love them and they love that thing. You know, my partner loves outdoor sports, loves like all kinds of I'm like parasailing and I love to be outside. I just don't have that inclination towards any kind of, you know, I'm like parasailing and I love to be outside. I just don't have that inclination towards any kind of, you know, I'm just, I'm just not that way. Yeah. But I love my partner and, you know,

I am sure happy to see them stoked on whatever it is that they're doing and participate in that thing. And, you know know i think that the the point for me is really honoring do i have the capacity to do that to do something that's kind of out of my comfort zone right now or not yeah yeah for me usually it's do i have like two days on either side to rest up before and rest up after because i'm like, okay, it's really making a decision that's aligned with your values, right? Because if I'm the parent, and my kids, you know, they don't have their own money, they don't have their own car, I have to, I have to help them get their needs met. That's, you know, the reality of the situation. And so some of what my work is, is doing the things that they want to do, because they don't have the capacity yet to do it for themselves. You know, so my question for myself is always, do I have the capacity to do it? And what does if I say yes to this, if I commit to this, what do I personally require in order for it to be as humane and sustainable experience as possible?

You know, I mean, God, I do so many ridiculous things for my children. But, you know. You've been entertained and happy. Yeah, well, and so that they have things. You know, I'm the basketball coach for my first graders basketball team right now. Seven years, girl, I, which is sweet and hilarious. But you know, I have a conversation with myself, which is I can't coach every season. So what are my favorite sports? You know, what do I genuinely like the most so that I'm having as authentic and good

of an experience while coaching as possible, right? Not just taking myself for granted, because I think that's the piece is that we take ourselves for granted a lot. And we could take a little bit more time to get curious and creative about how we approach something. You know, taking part in my children's extracurricular activities is important to me because I enjoy spending time with them in that way. And also I'm kind of bossy. Like I don't mind being a coach.

That's fun for me. But, you know, making sure that I'm doing it for a topic that I'm really interested in or, you know, I can't wait till they get older and I can direct their musical theater productions. That's I'm hoping they're interested in musical theater. That would be very fun for me. I use discernment, you know, sit with yourself. My body will always tell me yes or no.

You can even use yourself as like a human pendulum, but it's interesting. So we were talking about Ethan and me having to go to the Suicide Boys recently. He wants me to watch the series Moon Knight on Disney+. Now, my other kids are like, oh, that's so sweet, Mom, but he wants to relate with you.

You guys are going to have something to talk about because he's very hard to, you know, have conversation with outside of football or Marvel. So, I tried three episodes. Mara, I can't. Well, and I think this is the, this is the truth too about we can want, right? We can want to have that connection point.

We can want to do things. And also you're,'re you know you want your kids to have an authentic experience of you and so if you're bypassing all of your needs in order to do something for somebody else I mean here's what I know for sure I'm going to inevitably be grouchy, resentful, some kind of way that I don't want to be. And he asks me every day. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to say no. Did you watch the third episode yet? He wants to talk and everyone's like, Mom, you gotta watch it.

I'm like, y'all watch it. I don't have time for this. You should read the episode synopsis. Perfect. Yeah. Or you know how the beginning of everyone has like the whole recap of the one before. There you go. Well, you know what? And maybe instead of working so much, you know, maybe I should. So I do work a lot. How often do you put out episodes? At this point, I only put out two a month for, for all of these reasons for sustainability, really, I was putting out weekly episodes for a couple of years. And then I basically just took a unexpected break from my podcast when I started working on my book and then wanted to bring it back. But so basically, I asked myself, what is the most that I can do per month that I know that I'm going to be able to pull off no

matter what, which, you know, for me at that time was two episodes. And yeah, I might at some point, I really liked interviewing more people and do a solo episode and interview every month, you know, I might increase that at some point. But during this time where I was putting a lot of my creative expression into other parts of my life, it felt really good to reduce that and to think about, you know, again, not to just overload myself and then ghost, but instead be really intentional about what can I commit to sustainably and consistently so that I can show up for it without being completely overwhelmed by it. So I do two episodes a week.

I know it's wild and great. You know, it's interesting. One time someone said that I needed to make myself hours work hours because I mean you could work when you're working at work doing this and I heard you say that you wish that you had a boss yeah yeah I I really believe in hours I really believe in yeah yeah, you know, it is impossible to without boundaries, not just work all over the place when you work from home and it's easy. And also when you really like your work. That goes back to what I was saying about having to say no, even when you really like all of your things. But yeah, having those boundaries in place for me really makes it again, more sustainable. I used to sort of rush through bedtime with my kids because I would work on the other side of it. And it was always this

kind of pressured situation because I would have certain things that I knew I was going to get to on the other side of getting them to bed. So I wanted to get them to bed as fast as possible. They knew it too. Yeah. And then I was like, well, this just sucks. This whole thing sucks. And if I'm honest with myself, that's not a good time for me to be working at all. The quality of my productivity is poor at best. And so now, you know, I go, I go to bed with my kids, I take like a little nap for however long until I wake up. And then, you know, I get ready for bed and do whatever it is I do, but I don't work after that point. And sometimes that's stressful. You know, sometimes I think, well, I could be getting so much more done if I was working at night. But what's the quality of that? You know, I find if I'm sitting there and I'm working because my laptop is in front of me, how much am I actually getting done versus closing my laptop? Yeah. And just dare I say, not doing anything for a period of time and then picking it back up. Yeah, you're right.

We stretch ourselves half-ass multitasker. That's what I am. I can do a lot of things at once. But can you? But what is what does it take from me? Yeah, it's stressful. My therapist one time said, just because you can doesn't mean you should. Oh, that's a therapist goodie. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So what

do you hope that everyone gets from your book? I hope that people read my book and receive two things. The first is real expansion in terms of what they understand is possible to need. I find that we oftentimes don't even know when somebody says, okay, well, what do you need? We don't even know what we're allowed to ask for. You know, we don't even know what's on the table. And ostensibly, anything's on the table. But if you have this conditioning that needs are bad or that they're a burden or at worst or at best, we just have these examples of people who don't seem to have needs,

it can be really hard to get in touch with what is possible to need. So this book lays that out for you. It really tells you what is possible to need. And then I think it answers the second question, which is, okay, but how, right? And how do we start to do this internal inventory and build our relationship with ourselves and, you know, identify and honor and advocate for those needs? And the book really walks you through that in a very tangible way.

There's a lot of practices in there. There's a lot of things that you can do. And it's really written from a perspective of a choose your own adventure. I don't believe in a one size fits all model at all. But I do think that this is big work. And it really helps to have somebody holding your hand through it and to give you the framework that you can begin to fill in on your own so it doesn't feel like you're just lost in the abyss i give you a path to follow and how you know where that path takes you and what you put on that path is really up to you yeah because oftentimes we either one won't ask for help which is not brave asking for help is brave and and we find ourselves alone and in that place it is so lonely and so podcasts like yours book like yours I love it you know I took your quiz also on your I love quizzes you know

who doesn't love quizzes so fun it was great because I liked it it was fun but the last one really got me because I was like oh god I've said this a million times what I need is a clone uh-huh that's very telling isn't it yeah yeah yeah yeah you know a lot of this work is really human sizing our expectations of ourselves because too often, I don't know, we have this magical realist relationship with space and time and we think, you know, I'm looking, I have a to-do list on my desk right now, which has this many, you can see, I don't know, just like 20 items that I would be able to get to all of those things on a day where my children are sick, and I'm recording some podcast interviews is highly unlikely. And that's fine. Because at this point in my journey, it doesn't, I'm under no illusion that I need to finish anything on this list. But, you know, at a certain point in my life, it was really I do believe I can do all of these things. And, you know, in the same one hour of my schedule, and the pain and the shame and the blame,

the self blame that happens when you're not able to do that. And it's not your fault. It is quite literally the list's fault. So, you know, having more humane and human expectations of ourselves can also really help our felt experience of how we're moving through our daily lives. Right. I mean, don't put a finish line at the end of your day. Like, keep moving it up. I've learned that over time. I got better at it. I used to do the most. But it's necessary, right? Again, because for me, my commitment is to that sustainability and to feeling as good in my body as possible and bringing the best of my energy to anything that I'm putting my energy into. And that doesn't just happen by accident, right? That takes real intentional choices every single day about where you're putting your energy and where you're not. And it feels good, you know, even as it can be frustrating,

or you can have, you know, whatever feelings about it you have. But it also feels good to be taken care of in that way. And to be told, you know, okay, I see this in parenting my young children, because sometimes I'll say, Oh, yeah, you know, we can do this. We parenting my young children, because sometimes I'll say, oh, yeah, you know, we can do this. We can do that. We can do this, we can do that over the course of one day. But really, a three year old can do maybe one thing well, over the course of the day, and the rest is like eating, sleeping and walking around. Yeah. And we're not that different. Right? We're grownups and we're not that different. You know, I can't actually do a bunch of things in a day and do it well.

So, you know, having that. Take care of yourself. Yeah. Right. Make sure you're drinking water, breathing, all the things. No. Yeah. Downtime.

Yeah, absolutely. It's hard. I mean, I for sure all the time realize, you know, oh my God, I haven't drank water today. I literally did not drink water today. You know? Yeah. So important. Uh, yeah. Like what are the things like, but you know, it's just, it's something like that. So if you're too busy running around, then you don't have the space to make clear decisions or to take care of yourself yeah and then you're no good to take care of other people

absolutely so go get a massage get a mars book maybe and where can they find that book you can find it anywhere that books are sold i um, um, yeah, your local bookstore online, there is, uh, an electronic Kindle version. There's an audio book version. Um, if you like my voice, you'll like the audio book version. If you don't ask, get the hardcover version. I love your voice. It's very, it's very homey for me. I like it. Very comfy. And where can they find your podcast? Yeah, come hang out with me at maraglatzel.com. You can find the book, you can find my podcast, you can find the quiz that we mentioned, how to figure out what you need right now. And yeah, links to all of my offerings. They all live there at maraglatzel.com.

And now it's time to break that shit down. Yeah, so I've really been thinking today about how when you think about what you need, when you think about what you want, that the need is really the what and the want is the how. So I've been playing this game with myself where the need is I need a thing like I need breakfast or I need you know and then the want is the flavor of that thing that I want. So I need to get dressed well what do I want to wear? I need to eat breakfast well what am I hungry for? What do I want to eat? So playing with the way that those two our needs and wants really relate to each other has been really fun for me

right now because it keeps me from I bring that question to anything that I notice myself phoning in or saying oh well I just you know drink my coffee this way every day or do this in this specific order uh using that question of what do I need and how do I want to approach that need has really helped me just bring some more joy and levity and pleasure into my life right now. So you may want to play with that too. Thank you so much for coming on. You're a beautiful person with beautiful message. Thanks for having me. I would like to thank you and our special guests for being with me today. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. And visit my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com.

That's mysenseofsoul.com. I hope that you will join me next time. Thanks for listening.