Overloaded, Exhausted, and Ready for a Reset: 3 Doctors Give Their Best Advice

(00:02:23):

Lemme tell you why. There are three world renowned experts who have shown up today for you and all three of these medical experts. I want you to know some. They're not just giving you advice from some textbook, they're also parents. They're also caregivers of their aging parents, in addition to being remarkable medical doctors that are very busy at work just like you are. And so they're here today with the validation and they're here today with the very simple little changes both in your mindset and some things that you can do that are going to make a big difference for where you are right now in terms of the amount of caregiving that you're having to do. And you want to know what breaks my heart about this. You're drowning, but you keep blaming yourself for not swimming harder. And let me see if any of this sounds familiar.

 

(00:03:13):

First of all, you probably wake up before anybody else in the household and you do it because you're thinking, okay, I can have a little bit of time for myself, but what happens instead? Five 30, the alarm goes off and immediately you start mentally triaging the day mentally, you're already going through all the things that you need to do for the kids. You're going through all the things that you need to do for your mom or your dad if you're taking care of them. Oh my gosh, did mom get her dinner last night? Did she refill her medication? Wait, her parent teacher conferences today, did I pack the backpacks already? Your brain is in it for other people. You're scattered. You're feeling anxious, you're feeling behind. And your friend Mel bins, you know what? I'm going to put a word right now in here too, because you probably won't say this.

 

(00:03:58):

Maybe you feel a little resentful, maybe you feel a little frustrated because unlike your girlfriends who don't have aging parents, maybe they're able to do a yoga class. Maybe they're able to get out for a walk, but you can't because there's nobody to help and there's nobody to do this. And that's how you start your day and then you spend the next 90 minutes trying to get everybody else out the door, right? Somebody's melting down, mom's wandering around the kitchen, or maybe she's already texting you. Are you going to stop by today? And then you snap at somebody and you feel a little guilty that you can't hold it all together. There's no time to pull it together because there's a bazillion different directions. And then you're at work. And when you're at work, it's all about what needs to get done at work because they're paying you for your time.

 

(00:04:40):

But then comes that one moment in the day where you think, okay, I'm going to get a little break. I'm going to have a lunch break. Oh my God, a lunch break. But what do you do with your lunch break? Oh, well, maybe you're running to the grocery store because that's the only time you have to do a 15 minute sprint through the grocery store to grab enough for everybody. Or maybe you spend 25 minutes sitting on hold with the insurance company, or maybe you're calling the doctor's office because you missed the well appointment for the kids. And so now you're sitting on your lunch break on hold caregiving for everybody else. Now it's back to work because getting paid to work and then you get home and the second job starts. You got to take care of everybody. You got laundry to do, you got dinner to make, you got dogs to feed, you got a house to pick up.

 

(00:05:21):

Oh my God, are you exhausted yet? I know I am. And when is it that you actually have a moment to yourself? 9 30, 10. And that's while you're folding laundry as you're watching a series and then you collapse. And let me guess. Lemme guess. This is the only thing that goes according to plan any day, right? You wake up like clockwork at two 3:00 AM and the thoughts are racing. And so if you're feeling helpless and angry and stuck and resentful, you're doing it right, honestly, you are. This is because you got to wake up in the morning and do it all over again. If that sounds familiar. You're not alone. And if that doesn't sound familiar, but there's someone in your life who is currently in that caregiving cycle, I want you to text this to them or email it to them and say, holy cow, I just listened to this episode with Mel and I had no idea.

 

(00:06:28):

I am so sorry you're going through this. I think this might help. And there are small things that you're going to learn that you can do today, changes to your mindset, changes to the way that you take care of yourself in the middle of all of the things that are on your plate right now. And so I decided I really want to help because here's the first thing I want you to know. You're doing a great job with all the stuff that you have going on, the fact that you're still standing. I just want to like bravo, bravo. And you might notice if you're watching on YouTube, I've got stains all over my sweatshirt right now. This morning I reached over my eggs and I just smashed my sweatshirt into ketchup. And you know what I thought? I thought this is perfect because how many times have you spilled coffee on yourself as you're racing out the door because you've been carrying for everybody else and you don't even have time to clean it up.

 

(00:07:16):

So I was like, I'm just going to wipe the ketchup off my sweatshirt and wear it just as is because isn't that the life of a caregiver? Of course it is. And that's what I kept thinking about is I kept reading all of these letters that were pouring in. I mean, I've just got, you can hear it, there's like 50 pages of letters.

(00:08:22):

Even distance caregiving is a thing. If you've got a kid who's struggling and they don't live near you, you are worried about them all the time. If you have an aging parent, even if you're able to put them into some kind of care facility, you're thinking about them all the time. And so you can have the same symptoms that are affecting your health and your mood and your stress, even if you're not directly caring for your kids or your spouse or your parent when they're in a situation where they need care. So you might feel tired all the time, even when you're rested. And then you're kind of like, what's wrong with me? I just want to start out by listing some of the most common symptoms of what the medical experts call caregiver syndrome. Because what you're about to learn from one of our medical experts is that this is a particular type of stress and here are some of the common symptoms. You're constantly tired even after you've had a full night's sleep, you have trouble concentrating or staying organized. Oh, here's a big one. This one is like a ding, ding, ding for your friend, Mel. You're irritable.

 

(00:09:31):

You're short tempered. Well, of course, because you're fried from taking care of everybody. You feel emotionally numb or detached, you're losing interest in the things you used to enjoy. That one creeps up on you. And next thing you know, you feel like all you do is care for people and you haven't been to your book club in six months. You start withdrawing from friends and family or social situations, or you might notice that there's a change in appetite or you're having trouble sleeping or the sleep patterns are different. Or maybe you're getting sick more often and you keep going, oh, the allergy season is really bad this year. No, maybe it's caregiver syndrome. Maybe it's not the pollen in the air. Maybe you're so worn down that you don't even realize it. You start to feel like your needs don't matter. And here's a big one.

 

(00:10:16):

Oh my gosh, you feel guilty when you take any time for yourself. I want you to know something. You're not alone and you're not doing anything wrong. You're doing too much for too long without enough support. I want to share some statistics with you to really normalize how common this is. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Put out a study about this, and here's some of the findings. 7.1 million Americans provide unpaid elder care. To put this in perspective, that means 14% of the US population is providing unpaid elder care. If you're a caregiver, you probably spend an average of 3.6 hours a day helping someone else. If you're caring for a spouse, that number jumps to six hours a day. And check this out, 71% of you that are caregiving are the sole caregiver. That means you are the one juggling the medication, the money, the appointments, the logistics, the guilt, the exhaustion, then the feeling that you got to be there all the time while you're still trying to be present as a partner, a parent, or at a job.

 

(00:11:33):

It's important to acknowledge that this is a particular type of stress. And there are three reasons why the stress feels so different than any other type of stress. First of all, it's the loneliness. You feel like nobody gets it. You're surrounded by people all the time, and yet you feel alone in this responsibility. The experts will tell you this, and I also see it in your emails and the research backs it up. 27% of caregivers, that's more than 6 million people in the United States say they feel lonely. That loneliness is linked to an increase in depression and anxiety and even physical health problems. The second reason why caregivers stress is its own unique kind of stress is because the stress doesn't end. It's chronic. I mean, when you're taking care of an aging parent or little children, there's no finish line. You don't get to just clock out like you do at work.

 

(00:12:27):

You don't get to hit the pause button. It's constant. That's why it's wearing you down to the extent that it does, and that's why you got to look at this differently and attack it differently. And finally, the reason why this stress is so different than other forms of stress you may experience in your life is it's reshaping your relationships because you're not just a daughter or a partner or a parent anymore. You're the nurse, you're the driver, you're the advocate, you're the assistant. You're the one who has to keep it all together. You're the cook. You may be even the medical person who's having to clean sheets and clean up your mom or dad or give them a bath. And the weight of that changes everything between you and the person that you're caring for. And look, I see this in your emails. I see that you're isolated.

 

(00:13:14):

I see that you're exhausted. I see that your relationships are strained, and the thing that bothers me is I also see that you're making yourself wrong over it. Well, that's going to end today. Today I'm going to introduce you to these three amazing experts that are going to teach you what you need to know that will help you get yourself back. They're not going to just hand you another checklist. That's not what we're doing today.

Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (00:14:50):

So the Surgeon General's paints a bleak picture. It shows that parents are struggling and quite badly in this snapshot of data. Almost 50% of parents say that they are overwhelmed with stress On most days, 65% of parents are lonely, 77% of single parents are lonely, and we know that from prior data, 75% of parents have parenting burnout. And I think that based on all of this data, my hunch is actually that this data, as shocking as it may seem, is actually under reported feeling a sense of guilt or shame, feeling like, oh, I can do it all. I'm not stressed. This is just what parenting is. And so people aren't coming forward and actually sharing that. Yes, in fact, I am stressed. I'm surprised that it's only 50% of parents because I'm a parent and I know all of the science and I'm still stressed.

 

(00:15:46):

The surgeon General says it beautifully. Parenting is sacred work. And another phrase which I loved in his report was that simply put, caregivers need care too. And so we can think about what we can do in our own lives, and we lead with parenting ourselves. We are so good as parents on setting boundaries and limits for our children when it comes to bedtime or screen time or what they eat or how much they socialize. We are fantastic with creating all sorts of guidelines for our children, and yet we don't do that for ourselves. We tell our kids to go to bed at eight o'clock or seven o'clock because they need a good night's rest. Their brain and their body needs to develop. Yes, an adult's brain is not developing in the same way as a child, but it's not a grab bag. It's not like, oh, the brain I have at birth is a brain I've had for life.

 

(00:16:41):

It is constantly evolving and changing based on external stimuli. So when you do prioritize your sleep or connection or do movement or when you do all of these things which might bring an eye roll from parents, you are actively changing your brain so that you can manage the stressors better. Of course, we know that parenting and raising a child takes hard work, and of course it is stressful, but we need to parent ourselves because you can only pour from a cup that is full, and if you don't feel a sense of wellbeing and health, this is not just about the parent. And mental health for the parent research shows that it impacts future generations. So in one study, parental stress and mental health, poor parental mental health impacts the child because children of caregivers with poor mental health had a four times greater likelihood of having poor general health themselves.

 

Mel Robbins (00:17:42):

Okay, I want to highlight that. So you just said, and I want to make sure that as you're listening, because I think a lot of us in the trenches of parenting or caregiving of an aging parent, which is also also a grind on your stress as well, that there are different motivations for taking care of yourself. And if you're motivated by being the best parent that you can, understanding that your kids are four times more likely based on the research to have mental health issues

 

Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (00:18:18):

And general health issues

 

Mel Robbins (00:18:18):

And general health issues. If you are not taking care of yourself, there's your reason why. I'm going to give you another one. You are not put on this planet simply to be somebody's mother or father. And until you start to take care of your health, you will always limit the potential of what is possible for yourself. And you are also modeling for your children that what parenting looks like is sacrifice, stress, not taking care of yourself. And that's exactly what they're going to grow up and do to themselves. And if you want your kids to learn how to take care of themselves and how to be healthier and how to prioritize good habits, you have to model it. And it is possible for you to take care of yourself and to give a little bit more agency to your kids and to your partner if you have one, and to ask for help.

 

(00:19:15):

And these are all functions of a healthy human being, which is what you want your kids to grow up and be and what you deserve to be now. And one of the things that I love about your advice is that it constantly comes back to not sitting around waiting for somebody else to change this, but the power that you have in your own hands to make a decision that yes, it's stressful, but you're going to get better at managing it. And sleep is a huge piece of this. Is there any other takeaway that you want somebody who is in the throes of caregiving to have as something that they can do now to better manage the stress? Because you can't remove all of the external stuff that's going on. You can only get better at how you respond to it and how you take care of yourself.

 

Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (00:20:07):

You know that when you are going through a period of stress, your amygdala is on, and that inner critic has a megaphone. And when you are parenting, that experience is amplified because of societal messaging, familial messaging and messaging that you are internally creating. And so that inner critic, that megaphone, sometimes you have a megaphone in each hand when it comes to parenting. So first, understand that you are doing so much better than you think you are as a parent. Self-compassion, being gentle on yourself if you mess up. We know that in the parenting research, repair is really important. And so of course, no one is going to be a perfect parent 24 7. That's humanly impossible. But understanding that you have to turn inwards and give yourself the same care, attention, compassion, and parent yourself through the journey is really important.

 

Mel Robbins (00:21:05):

You know what I love about what Dr. Aditi is telling you? She's giving you permission to say that even though I decided to become a parent, it's stressful and saying that it's stressful and recognizing that you're not alone as a parent, it doesn't mean you love your kids any less. It doesn't mean that you're a bad parent. It is stressful and recognizing that in those moments of stress, you still have to turn inwards. You got to learn how to take a deep breath. You got to be more compassionate with yourself instead of so hard on yourself. This is a medical doctor telling you this, and you may be thinking, oh, okay, I'm not alone. Other people are going through this too, and I matter and I do need to take better care of myself. But I'm sure what you're thinking is, yeah. And what do I do when I can't change anything?

 

(00:22:01):

What do I do when I got four kids under the age of 10? What do I do when I'm barely getting the bills to be paid and I got to get the kids to school and I'm worried about their anxiety? What do I do when, yeah, it's stressful, but I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't know how any of this is going to change.

(00:22:52):

I have no say, I have no power. There's this loss of agency. That's the fancy way to say it, because basically you are stuck in the middle of someone else's crisis, whether it's dementia, Parkinson's, a chronic illness, a disabled child, or maybe a massive bout of anxiety or depression that one of your kids or your partner's going through. And then you start to feel like my life is not my own because I got to deal with this. And then you feel like a jerk. And that's what drives the hopelessness, this feeling that you can't change what is happening because it's not just the tasks and all the stuff you have to do. It's like you don't feel like you have a choice anymore, and that's why you lose your sense of self. And so Dr. Pooja Lakshmin is here to talk to you about that.

 

(00:23:37):

She's a psychiatrist, she's a mother, and she's somebody who has been through this grind herself. And her work focuses on how you can reclaim your agency when the world feels like it's out of control right now, not in some big dramatic way, but in the smallest decisions that you make every day because it's true. You can't control everything right now, but Dr. Pooja will tell you, you can change something. And I pushed her a little bit on it. I'm like, come on. Is it possible to actually take care of yourself and not feel guilty and not feel selfish? And this is what Dr. Pooja wants you to know.

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:24:16):

For folks that are listening, I want you to know that it's possible to make a change. And that feeling of selfishness or guilt that you get each time you set a boundary that doesn't need to control you, that that feeling actually is not the truth of who you are, and you're going to get some skills and tools to take away to really understand how to feel like you have agency in your life.

 

Mel Robbins (00:24:45):

What does the word agency mean?

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:24:48):

I think of agency as the ability to feel like you can solve problems in your life even when there are external constraints, even when your environment is stacked against you, that you can take action and that that action will cause change. That's what agency is, and I think that's power.

 

Mel Robbins (00:25:09):

I love that she took the time to explain that because when you're in the mode of caregiving, you feel like you have no power. You feel like things are completely out of control. And I personally have heard the word agency a bazillion times. You may have too, but I really never understood how it was connected to control and power until Dr. Lakshmin explained it that way. It's true. Agency is what's missing when you're burnt out because you feel like you have no control. It's being able to say, okay, I can't fix everything, but I can handle this one thing today. That's where things start to shift. That's how you get a little of your yourself back by reminding yourself, I don't have to worry about all of the outliers here. I can just remind myself that I have control over this one little thing that I'm going to handle.

 

(00:26:03):

That's the crack in the wall. That's where the light starts to come through. And we're going to let a lot of light in because Dr. Lakshmin is here, and she is five simple questions that she uses with her patients as a check-in. I want you to answer them for yourself because in hearing these questions and answering them, you're going to locate yourself and know exactly where you are, where your energy is going, where that energy is leaking, and why you feel so depleted. This is almost like you walking into her office and Dr. Lakshmin is sitting there and she's going to ask you the same five simple questions. It's going to help you find some agency. And when you hear these questions, I want you to answer them for yourself because in hearing these questions and answering them, you're going to locate yourself and know exactly where you are, where your energy is going, where that energy is leaking, and why you feel so depleted.

 

(00:27:03):

And as you listen, I want you to notice which one of these five questions really hits a nerve. Now, that's not a sign that you're doing anything wrong. It's a clue about where you need to start to regain your agency and control. And don't worry, tools are coming a little bit later to help you do just that. Right now, we're just going to go through these five questions, okay? That are going to give you an inventory. And before I let Dr. Lakshmin ask you these five simple questions, I do want to say this. If your answer to all five questions is, Nope, I don't do that. I don't even know how to start doing that. Dr. Lakshmin gets it. She's been there. We all have, you're not failing. You're just way overdue for a check-in. And these questions, it's not about setting perfect boundaries, it's just about getting honest with yourself. That's where you start. Because once you get honest with yourself, things can start to shift because you can't control everything. But if you ask yourself these five questions, honestly, it's going to tell you exactly what is the one thing you need to change. So here's Dr. Pooja Lakshmin asking you those five questions that are going to assess the areas where you can find more agency.

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:28:20):

Do I feel motivated to tackle my tasks or am I overwhelmed or am I apathetic? Are there any particular people or situations that are constantly draining me? Do I set aside regular time for rest, or am I always pushing through and gritting my teeth? Do I ever ask for help? And when people offer help, am I able to actually receive it? Am I making time for things that truly matter to me, not to my kids, not to my partner, not to society, but to me? Or am I constantly caught up in things that don't serve me?

 

Mel Robbins (00:28:59):

I think I just heard the person who's with us right now slump a little. There were a couple of those, especially the one, do I set aside time for rest or am I always pushing through that? Really? It was like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. What does it tell you as a psychiatrist when someone is answering these questions as a, no, I don't feel like I can tackle my tasks or I'm really drained by situations or I never rest, or I don't allow people to help me. And I definitely don't make time for things that truly matter to, not to everyone else. And frankly, I don't even know what matters to me. I'm so busy taking care of everyone else. What does that tell you? When you walk somebody through these questions?

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:29:52):

The reality is that's all of us. That is all of us. That is all my patients. That is me at various times in my life. I think that we need to understand we are all under these pressures. So of course you're going to feel this way. And when I see this come up in my practice, again, this is everybody naming it. Naming it is so powerful because then we can actually say, okay, what do we do? How do we work on this? I imagine that most folks listening are, yeah, they checked off, yes, for everything. I don't want anybody to panic. I don't want you to freak out. If you've checked all these things, you might be burnt out. But I think that we kind of treat burnout as this dreaded catastrophic thing. But when something is so dreaded, you engage in denial, you engage in avoidance, and then it takes landing yourself in the hospital or losing your job, getting into a car accident to finally say, oh yeah, I guess I, I am burnt out.

 

(00:30:54):

So in reality, I think that we need to understand that's just part of the game right now because of the world that we live in, and the whole process of boundaries and real self-care is to recognize it sooner, to recognize it when it's a little b burnout as opposed to a big B burnout so that you can start to get back on the wagon, start to get back into your boundaries so you're not reaching that place of on the floor. I'm saying this because I want folks to understand that there are solutions. This is not incurable. And I walk patients through this all the time, and I will say, if you're somebody who's type A or perfectionistic or workaholic, not that I know anybody like that, you'll probably go through this cycle more often because you are constantly sort of moving forward. So I will say for myself, I go through this every six months where I have to reconfigure and think about my boundaries and relearn how to talk to myself. But there's a silver lining. It gets easier each time. It gets so much easier each time.

 

Mel Robbins (00:32:06):

How do you define burnout?

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:32:09):

I think it's a little bit chicken and egg when it comes to boundaries and burnout, because one of the characteristics of burnout is feeling like your actions have no meaning, almost kind of like a cynicism. You're just going through the motions, but nothing that you do actually really matters or is going to impact anything. And when you don't have boundaries, you also sort of feel like everything's closing in on you. You don't have a choice. You're not actually living your life. Your life is sort of happening to you. I think it's tough. I think that this is one of the things, this is why therapy takes so long, because you have to tease apart all the different pieces because certainly not having boundaries makes it more likely that you're going to become burnt out. But when you are burnt out and even little be burnout, your boundaries are usually worse. So it's like the cycle that keeps going.

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:01):

So what does somebody's life look like if they don't have any boundaries?

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:33:06):

Yeah. So there's three telltale signs that tell me a patient doesn't have boundaries. The first is that they are angry and irritable all the time, that everybody around them knows that they're kind of like a ticking time bomb, but the person actually, they just think that they're selfless. They think that they're doing everything for everyone else. So the perfect example is the mom that stays up all night on Christmas Eve, wrapping all the gifts, and then the next morning is just a terror and is like, oh my God, you guys see that this wrapping paper is the perfect one? And everyone's just like, oh my gosh, mom has lost the plot.

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:46):

You mean me? Yeah, you mean me? That is me. And you know what I was thinking is, oh my gosh, I have that. I do get angry.

 

(00:33:54):

I go overboard, and I get angry when I don't feel appreciated, and then I feel like a victim. And I have this whole thing where my family takes me for granted, and you're not thankful enough when really I didn't need to buy matching wrapping paper. I didn't need to go overboard and basically drive myself into the ground to make everything perfect. And instead of having a boundary with myself and stopping myself, I then become a victim and get pissed off at my family because they don't appreciate all this stuff that they never even asked me to do in the first place. And they don't even want me to do.

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:34:31):

Exactly, exactly. And actually that's the other thing that I see that's the second sign, is expecting everybody else to be constantly grateful and thanking you when in fact they haven't even asked for any of these things. But you have this underlying assumption and need that people need to be pouring their thanks out to you and then you're resentful when you don't get it. But the reality is nobody asked for it. You made that choice. The person that doesn't have boundaries is constantly feeling like they are managing their life as opposed to living their life. I see this a lot with my patients who are all women, mostly moms, right? You feel like you're managing your family as opposed to actually being part of your family because you haven't taken the space to unload some things and actually allow yourself to be present. So another sign is that you constantly fantasize about escape. So whether that is, I just need to go to a retreat a week, I just need to lay on the beach. So the reality is those are escapes and your mind goes there because you feel so overwhelmed and you feel powerless about actually making decisions and choices in your life.

 

Mel Robbins (00:35:53):

As I'm listening to you, I'm having this massive realization about boundaries. I've always known that boundaries are not for other people. Boundaries are like my rules for myself. But the mistake that I'm realizing that I made is that I've always made those rules about what I do and don't do with other people. And I've never hit that pause and truly thought about what are the rules that I have for myself that allow me to truly care for myself? And it's a completely different way to look at this topic and why the pause then becomes essential so that you stop yourself from constantly pouring into everybody else and then running them over when they're not grateful like I always do, or feeling like the victim or unappreciated. Wow, this is kind of pulling on a string of a sweater and now my whole life is unraveling before my eyes and I realized I have a lot of work to do.

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:36:59):

I'm so sorry.

 

Mel Robbins (00:37:00):

Well, I should be thanking you. I'm happy to do the work, to not drive myself crazy and into the ground and make my family the villains here. So it does beg the question though. How the heck do you start? I mean, am I going to put my hands on my hips and be like, alright, no wrapping on Christmas presents. You guys are getting 'em in the grocery bags this year and you better be grateful. I have a boundary. How do you do this?

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:37:24):

Well, don't do that.

 

Mel Robbins (00:37:24):

Okay,

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:37:26):

You want to start small. And so that means actually not with your family because your family's actually the hardest. That's advanced level setting boundaries with family or in-laws. You want to actually start really, really small.

 

Mel Robbins (00:37:39):

Why is it hard to set boundaries with family?

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:37:42):

Because you have years and years and years of history with family that you have to undo. So if mom has been folding laundry and putting everyone's folded laundry in their drawers for the past 30 years, and all of a sudden mom says like, Hey guys, I'm not going to do laundry anymore. People are going to have some feelings. You have to let go of control. You have to let the other person do what they're going to do, even if it means a messy underwear drawer and it drives you crazy. You have to let go of control. The other thing is it's going to take longer. It's going to take longer. People are going to do it their own way. A lot of times we avoid the yes no and negotiate because it's just easier to say yes and just do it and get it done, and then you can just move on with your day. But instead when you stop and you negotiate or you say no, or it's this whole thing and we kind of trick ourselves into thinking it's not worth it, but the reality is, it is worth it because you're setting new expectations for the future

 

Mel Robbins (00:38:43):

For yourself and for them.

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:38:44):

Correct

 

Mel Robbins (00:38:44):

That I'm not going to get upset about this because my energy is needed elsewhere.

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:38:49):

Correct.

 

Mel Robbins (00:38:50):

Wow. So how do you get started if we're going to start small and not with our family?

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:38:56):

So you want to start at really low stakes risks. So very baby risks. So I will tell you with my patients, and even for me at times it's remedial. It's like I am going to sit down and eat lunch.

 

Mel Robbins (00:39:12):

You mean actually eat but not stand and eat and work and talk and eat

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:39:16):

And not in front of my computer? Yes, I'm going to sit down at a table and actually eat lunch. I have a patient who is a healthcare worker. And so as we got to working on these things, we realized she can go an entire eight hour shift on the wards working and not eat anything, and not drink anything, not even have a sip of water. So we start small. We start really basic like, okay, every hour you're going to go to the nurses station and you're going to drink some water. That's where you start. You do not start with your kids and Christmas or your mother-in-law and Thanksgiving. You start by the drinking water because those skills they build on each other. They give you confidence, and then you work your way up

 

Mel Robbins (00:40:01):

And you may be thinking water, but I don't think you realize how little space you give yourself to take care of yourself. Just stop and think, are you drinking enough water for real? And could you make the one change where starting today, you're going to take a break every hour, just put a little alarm on your phone, have it go off in an hour. And I want you to either take a drink of water or stand up from where you're sitting or take a deep breath for a minute and just inhale and then exhale. It sounds so dumb, doesn't it? But I got to tell you, it's everything. Because what she's teaching you to do is to tap the brakes on the runaway day that you have and force yourself to tune back in and take care of yourself. And let's be honest, if you can't once an hour remind yourself with the alarm, you need the alarm, I need the alarm to drink some water or take a deep breath or stand up from where you've been sitting, how the heck are you going to do the bigger things you're not?

 

(00:41:09):

And so this is a way for you to find a small moment of control when you are in a situation caregiving where there is a lot out of your control. But if we can start here, we can build from there. And one of the reasons why I wanted you to learn and be supported by Dr. Lakshmin is because think particularly if you're listening and you're a woman, you tend to feel guilty when you're not. Just go, go, go, go, go for your job. Go, go, go, go, go for your kids, go, go, go, go, go for your partner. Go, go, go for your parents. And that's why you and I are not starting with some big dramatic change. I know you don't take any time for yourself because you already feel guilty about it. That's why you're going to start with something tiny, something easy.

 

(00:41:58):

So the alarm goes off, have I had any water? No, I'm going to take a sip of water. Every time you do it, it builds on each other. It's like a foundation that you're building, and once you start, they start to stack. You drink the water. Next thing you know you're sitting down for lunch. Next thing you know you are getting to bed at a consistent bedtime. Next thing you know, you're getting yourself dressed before you help everybody else get dressed because you can't control everything, but you can change something and you have to start small.

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:42:42):

The number one reason that my patients struggle with boundaries is the guilt. So I'm going to share a little tool that can help with the guilt. So imagine that you are at a sushi restaurant, so one of those sushi restaurants where the plates are coming around on the conveyor belt, there is a sushi chef and he is at the center of all of the plates that chef, the sushi chef is your brain. That's your mind. The plates of sushi that are going around the conveyor belt are your thoughts and your feelings and your memories and your desires rolling through over the course of the whole day. And now you're sitting at that sushi bar and there's going to be plates that are really appetizing that you're going to want to pick up and grab and gobble, but then there's going to be plates that really are unappetizing, and we all have different things where we're like, oh, I just want to push that away.

 

Mel Robbins (00:43:40):

Yes,

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:43:41):

But you don't do that at a sushi restaurant. You just let the plates go by. So that's how we need to think about guilt. Guilt is not something that is, it doesn't need to be our moral compass. It is just one feeling that is there among many other feelings and thoughts. And when we frame all of our decisions around boundaries based on guilt, we're giving it way too much power. The reason that I think that hopefully this metaphor helps for folks is because when you visualize the sushi train, you're able to see that the guilt is just one small piece over everything else. And if you spend all of your time trying to avoid feeling guilty, you're actually giving the guilt as much power.

 

Mel Robbins (00:44:32):

So I'm thinking about the person who is taking their break and they're going to have their water and a little snack, and the second that they go down one floor and they hide in a room that nobody else is in. So you can just take a break and set that boundary, the feelings of, I should really get back to work. I shouldn't stay so long. I'm going to get in trouble if I'm doing this. You're saying every one of those thoughts are just a sushi plate of sea urchin going by, and you can just let it come and let it go and stay and have your water and keep in the pause.

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:45:11):

Correct. Your job is to learn how to tolerate the guilt. And I know that this is difficult, but the good news is that as you start to practice it, it becomes easier. The volume goes down on the guilt. It never completely goes away, but it gets so much softer. It becomes more of a whisper, and you're able to be like, oh, it doesn't bother you.

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:35):

How do you counsel a patient who is coming to you and the guilt is related to being a single parent or related to caring for an aging parent or somebody that is going through an illness and it's just nonstop? How do you handle boundaries and truly caring for yourself or asking for help in those situations?

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:45:59):

People who are in those situations usually are in fight or flight. Their nervous system is hypervigilant and stressed for good reason. They are carrying so much responsibility. So the first piece is just to acknowledge the grief. Really just acknowledge how hard this is and how much it sucks. Really, that validation goes a really long way. After that, there's a couple things. Recognizing that by setting a boundary, by pausing, you're not always going to be able to say no, right? The boundary is the pause. Understanding that that will feel uncomfortable because there are a lot of people depending on them, but they have to start somewhere small, right? We're talking about the small things, the feeding and watering yourself, and you'll be able to work up to the bigger things and acknowledging in those situations, yes, there is going to be a cost. Balls will drop. Nora Roberts talks about the rubber balls versus the glass balls. You need to know what those rubber balls are.

 

Mel Robbins (00:47:04):

Can you give us examples of what they are?

 

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin (00:47:06):

It's things like, I have three kids and they're all in different schools, and those schools, each one is like 30 minutes from the other to my kids. Really all need to go to schools that are 30 minutes from each other. That is a choice. That is a choice that you have made. Here's another example, and I talk about this in the book. I'm the one who is taking care of my father. My mother passed away. I have other siblings, but they are not contributing at all. And I've been taking this, I've been taking this for years and years and years, but you're finally going to understand that you can't do it all by yourself, and you will get sick if you continue to keep doing it all by yourself. So again, that's kind of like setting the boundary and understanding I need to have a hard conversation with my siblings. They need to chip in as well.

 

Mel Robbins (00:48:01):

I just love listening to her. One of the things that changed in my life after learning from Dr. Lakshmin, all the things that she's sharing with you right now is I started truly eating lunch at work. I was the kind of person that was like, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. I couldn't possibly take and forcing myself to stop for 20 minutes and sit down and have a proper lunch made me feel human and more in control. It made me feel as though work wasn't running me over that I still had a say. And so I'm telling you that because it would be easy to dismiss this advice, something that doesn't really matter, but I can't tell you enough how much this does matter. So start small because when you start doing this, what you're actually learning is how to dislodge that internalized guilt because it's the guilt that you got to do it all That keeps you pushing even when you're breaking.

 

(00:49:04):

I also kept thinking about something else that's just as powerful, and that's the story that you tell yourself that you can't stop, that you couldn't possibly take a break, that if you're not there, everything's going to fall apart. If you don't get this thing done today, then you're a lousy daughter or you're screwed or whatever. The stories that you are repeating in your own head,