Unlocking Your Inner Rebel: How Parents Can Break Free and Rediscover Themselves
choice choose hygge permission rebel Sep 15, 2023I got to tell you straight up, we are doing a whole bunch of different stuff right now. First of all, if you're not already there, oh, my God, this is so scary for me. I'm recording this on video. Deep breath. Okay? Yes, that is, like, all the fear and anxiety and all those things, and I'm not hitting stop. (And for the blog, I'm going with the transcript from the video and the podcast, minus the "um's".)
Okay, for those of you that aren't familiar with me, I am a really big perfectionist, and I hate hitting record. I hate showing up in front of crowds and hitting record, being on stage, looking at myself, doing these things, and yet I'm doing it. And there will be so much more to come about this. But basically, the scary things are the things that I need to do, because that's where the opportunity is. And so you will see me and hear me taking all sorts of deep breaths.
All right, number two. Okay, we're going to have a little bit of some kind of structure changes going on here with the podcast. We are going to see a little bit of different themes that are coming up. And I want to tell you where that all came from. And it's honestly the theme of our episode today. It's about being a rebel. Unlocking that inner rebel that you have. And I got to tell you, those were not my words to begin with, okay? I basically was like, okay, I hate this whole AI thing, ChatGPT. And I had someone that was like, "Hey, you need to put your ideas into ChatGPT and come up with a hook." And when entered into ChatGPT: "I want to do an episode about parents giving themselves the permission to do what it is that they want to do something different." Chat GPT came back and said, "Unlocking your Inner Rebel: How Parents Can Break Free and Rediscover Themselves."
I'm like, OMG, ChatGPT, you tapped into my brain. I still hate you, AI. But, yes, that's exactly it. LOL!
So let's talk about doing that, okay? Does that sound like something that doesn't fit for you, either? That whole thing about being a rebel, someone once said to me, you're going rogue. You're a rebel. And they were talking about my approach in medicine and my approach to, um, working different hours. First of all, not being a full time physician. I'm like, oh, God, I'm one of those. And then they were talking about and you talk so differently about weight and health and like, oh, yeah, well, damn straight I am. Yes, I am. Is that what it means to be a rebel? To be rogue? I'm like, well, yeah, somebody's got to do it. And so I've started wearing that more and more, and now uh, hearing Chat GPT say it back to me. I'm like, oh, bring it on. Because that may be part of the permission that we get to offer ourselves to be able to maybe ask what others are seeing in us and what it is that we want to see in ourselves. All right, so let's go for a ride.
I have taken a pause from the podcast, blog and group coaching for the past 2 months. And I honestly just had so many things going on this summer that I was like, I don't need to be putting my bandwidth towards the regular, content creation and recording and all the drama that comes up for me when I do that. And so I planned to take off for the summer and it was awesome. I was like, you know what, I'll come back later on in August and we'll just restart where we left off. Well, what did I do this summer? Well, I had some magical times. I took time with my niece and nephew. They came out, East from the Midwest. And of course, Aunt Wendy lives really close to the beach and so I appreciate that I have a really good reason for people to come and visit me. It's really nice to just drive 20 miles instead of 20 hours to get to the beach. And so we got to spend magical time together.
My niece and nephew are about ten years younger than my kids: same order, same spacing, just ten years younger. And so it's fascinating kind of having the, how would I say, the Part Two on Navigating all the fun of raising kids at this age and so having an eight and an eleven year old and all the things that they're going through. That was definitely a huge highlight of my summer. And the other one that is going to come up so much in discussions because it's been so meaningful for me over with my experience and it's really been changing my life is my daughter who just started her Master's program and she asked me to help her move in in Denmark. Yeah, she's going to Europe to study for her Masters and I think she honestly wanted me to help her with her baggage limits on the plane.
It's okay, I don't care if it was about transporting stuff: she asked me if I wanted to go. Of course I said yes.
And so I took a couple of weeks with helping her move in, getting her there when she had orientation, uh, for a week, I said, "Hey, you're good here. And I went out on my own for about a week, traveling around. She lives in the northern part of Denmark. So I went down further south to Copenhagen and I spent some time there. Then I went to the smaller city of Helsinore, and then I took the ferry across the water and I went to Helsinborg, Sweden. They're clearly sister cities right across the water from each other.
Here's the thing. It's not about all the travel that I did. It's actually about the things that I didn't do. And that's what was so magical. While I was in Scandinavia, I was introduced to a brand new culture. And I couldn't put my finger on it at first, and then I heard what it was. And so the Danes have a concept that is called hygge. And so if you've read it before, it's pronounced "hoo-gah". And that approach is something where they define it as in different places, you can find it as contentment or comfort. Some places will define it, or translate it as fun.
But the part that really resonated with me is how it's that comfort and contentment, and it is infused throughout all of Danish life. Like they build everything based off of this quiet, this contentment, this warmth, this softness. And I felt it right away, and it was just a breath of fresh air. And I was like, what is this? I see something here.
This is changing me. I am slowing down. My brain is slowing down. Which was amazing to just kind of take things offline. But it wasn't like it was turned off. It's like it was going to another phase that my body was just so waiting for.
And so I found myself getting a little bit nervous as I was getting ready to come home. I was like, I don't want to leave this here. And then I realized that this is not something that is unique to Denmark. It's something that I was introduced to in Denmark, and I'm going to bring it home with me.
And that's where that permission concept came up because I think that there's something that we often think of permission. But permission, we think of it as somebody giving us the permission, or we give somebody else the permission to do something. You may do that. So what is it that you're asking permission for? From whom?
Well, thing that I started seeing here is that there was a permission, first of all, that I could give myself. I don't need anybody else's permission other than my own.
How many times when I think it's that I need permission, it's actually me holding myself back and I'm looking for somebody else to give me the green light to do it. I can take what it is that is working for me this summer and bring it home with me. I can use it in my everyday life. And that was the other side of this. I was actually thinking maybe the permission is about not doing something. When I started thinking about that, I was like, well, what about for me? What if the permission is about not looking to fill all my time, all day long? I love playing Tetris. In particular, I love playing tetris with my Google Calendar. I have all sorts of different color coded stuff, and I fit it in and it fits just beautifully. I am using all that maximizer for my calendar, and it can really drive me crazy sometimes. I found in Denmark that I loved having a ton of white space unstructured. And it wasn't just for vacation. I don't want to have to go somewhere for this. This is something that I can give myself the permission to bring that home, to use it every single day, to institute it, to institutionalize it. Like, to just make this a part of what it is that I'm doing on the regular.
My mind has been blown. I cannot unsee this. And that's why I wanted to talk about that today, because it's about that permission.
And yes, it is my inner rebel. My inner rebel is freaking quiet and soft and content and comfortable. And so I'm breaking free. Okay. Thank you, Chat GPT.
I'm breaking free of this kind of mold that I've created for myself. I'm rediscovering what is at the heart for me, what is most important in my heart, how I want to define and live my life. And, uh, my family is experiencing it, too, because they can feel the difference in me. They can feel it. They may not be able to put an exact finger on it to describe it, but it's like a collective exhale.
And so my gift to myself is also my gift to them. So I come back to a message that I had recently put into one of my emails to my list, and I said, "You choose." These are the wise words of my husband, by the way, who is not a philosopher by any stretch of the imagination. And I was trying to figure out how I was going to approach something else that I will not get into the full story right now, but as a military family, there's an upcoming questionable move, and how am I going to approach that? And he was like, "Hon, you choose." I'm like "OMG, no wiser words have ever been spoken."
You get to give yourself the permission. I get to give myself the permission to choose, to decide. That's the rebel. That's letting that inner rebel come out and speak about what is most important, what it is that I'm going to choose. Now, that email that I sent out had all sorts of different replies and responses from different parents. It's funny. So I have a couple of different, um, strings on my list as far as, um, parents that are worried about weight, parents that are worried about supporting their children's mental health and emotional health. And then also working with professionals of all varieties around stress and burnout at the heart. It's emotional health for all of us. So I sent out my "you choose" message about emotional health to everyone. And I got responses from folks from all the different threads of who this touches. And they all reflected how this was, exactly how they or what they needed to hear right now, how they're going through something right now. And that you choose message was so important. And so I know that each and every one of you listening and watching (and reading!) today you get to see where this applies in your life. And that's the beauty of it all. That's the beauty.
And that's quite honestly, what I would love to hear, because this is something that they say, it's so meta. All this information can be applied in different ways, these tools, but it's also our humanity. And seeing how we are all interconnected and the themes are all interconnected. So I would love to hear from you: What is this bringing up? What questions are you asking yourself? How are you maybe seeing your current situations in your life through that lens of, yeah, I want to unleash that inner rebel. I want to be able to offer myself the permission and to choose. All right, my friends, we'll chat soon.
Drop me a line at [email protected] with your ah-ha's, comments or questions. Yes, they come directly to me. Much love!
Check out the Family in Focus with Wendy Schofer, MD Podcast!
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