Hey and welcome back to the Smooth Stones podcast. Over the summer I took a little break and I really needed that. I’ve been doing this podcast for a lot of years and I love it. It’s one of my most favorite things. And also, we just had so many things, um, in this last year, we moved twice. We got a new house.

We just had so many ups and downs and so many things going on with our family that at first what happened was it was an unintentional break, but I realized pretty quickly into the summer that podcasting was just going to need to go up on the shelf for a little And I’m really proud of myself for doing that because I love talking to you and I love doing this podcast and I just needed to not do it for a few months.

So I’m really happy to be back and to be putting out new episodes for you. And I wanted to talk about this today because I think this is really, really important. I have been watching people all around in my personal life on social media, just even reading in the news that I feel like there’s this energy of just, are we all just a little bit burnt out by our lives and certain parts of our lives?

I think it’s really important to know, number one, you totally have permission to take a break. If you need to take a break, do it. And you might want to ease back in. And I think that’s where we get really stuck. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today is if you’ve taken a break from something and you’re thinking you want to ease back in, what does that even look like?

How do we do it? How do we do it without that fear of maybe repeating and burning out again? Um, or just getting overwhelmed, like we can’t handle it. . I want you to, if you have something in your life, and especially if you’re not being really kind with the way you’re speaking to yourself.

And maybe you’re beating yourself up a little bit that you had to step away from something. Um, taking a break is good. You always can. I think we have some sort of ideas about needing to be these robots in our life that we always do the same thing. Like, if we always, um, I don’t know. I’m drawing a blank friends.

Um, if we have always participated in sports or we’ve always participated in a certain charity or maybe we’ve done. Okay. So I used to do this birthday service project for Lauren’s birthday every year. And I did that for probably. Eightish years and then, and I would like spend months and months leading up and I would get like all these people and we would sew all these little baby clothes and we would do all kinds of things and I would raise money and I sold t shirts one year.

Um, there just came a point where it wasn’t working and I needed a break and that was okay. Right? So if I wanted to do that again, if I thought Lauren’s 12th birthday is coming up, what’s something special I could do, I could start thinking about, um, how to lean back in, but I can be really kind to myself and not tell myself, like, how could I stop that?

Like, I really need to keep doing this. And these people are depending on me. And it’s been such a big thing, like a part of my life for so many years. How do I take a break? But it’s like, you just do, you just stop doing what you were doing. You just tell people like, Hey, I’m not doing it this year. Or sometimes you just stop doing it.

And honestly, like things that we think are so important end up being like, they are important. And also it’s not as big of a deal when we stopped doing them as it used to be. So it could be a tradition. It could be a way you are in your life that you just you don’t have the energy for it. You can take a break.

Okay. Um, like making dinner comes to mind. If you’re someone who’s really prided themselves on home cooked meals or meal planning, or like all these things, and you’re in a season of life where things are just too busy and you got to pull some frozen stuff out, or you got to stop at the drive thru. We can really beat ourselves up for that.

But it’s okay to take a break from cooking every single meal. Okay, so listen to yourself. This is a good thing. Take a break if you need to. You have absolute permission and drop all the guilt and shame. Okay, now going back. Let’s talk about that. You’re starting to feel like, hey, Maybe I have the energy.

Maybe I do want to dive more into what I was doing before. It could even be work, charity work, social media. I’ve seen so many people, especially this summer, actually, I felt like I was in really good company because so many people just took a social media break and I mostly did, I wasn’t doing the podcast, I wasn’t consistently posting on social media because I needed a break and then it’s like, okay.

But I feel like I want to go back. So first think of anything that that’s coming to mind for you. As always, I want these episodes to be really helpful, like fun to listen to learning things, but also applying. So apply this to your life. Where have you taken a step back that maybe you want to go into? It could even be trying again for a baby that you had been in a season of trying and you needed to take a step back, right?

I have a lot of clients that have had that experience where, you know, they’re just trying to figure out. If and when should we try again, if that’s a possibility. So, um, your brain is going to think that what happened before is going to happen again. So this is what our brain does. It goes to the past for information about the future.

So if you got really burned out doing what you were doing, when you start thinking about going back to it. Your brain’s going to think that that’s going to happen again, and that’s going to bring up a lot of anxiety. And so now not only are we kind of like thinking of dipping our toe back in the water, but we’ve added this anxiety.

We have these fears. We don’t trust ourselves. We we’ve lost a lot of trust. And that especially happens if you have some shame around taking a break where you’re thinking like you should have been stronger. You should be able to do this. You should be able to handle this. You always could handle this before and what’s wrong with you.

Okay. But there’s nothing wrong with you, right? So we just have to be onto our brain that it’s going to go to the past for information about the future. It’s also sometimes really unkind. We have that inner critic that comes out and so it can seem insurmountable or you can really feel stuck. How do I even do this?

How do I move forward? How do I. Go back into whatever I stopped doing. So that’s why we’re talking about easing back in, right? Easy, gradual, right? It’s not like jumping into the deep end of a pool. It’s like walking into a beach. If you’ve noticed a lot of my colors and my imagery, it’s all about this beach vibes.

And I love that you’re just like taking steps. Into the water right starting off real shallow and walking in so we have to not feel like we’re jumping back into the deep end and do what we need to do to make it easy to ease back in being aware is the very first step. It always is notice what’s happening in your brain.

If you need to like write it down to a brain dump and just write down all the things that you are afraid of. if you go back in, right? Like if you go back to work, if you join back into family gatherings, if you start talking to a person you haven’t been talking to, if you try to like rekindle a relationship that got a little beaten down, um, during your loss or whatever it is, be aware of what’s going on.

Be aware of the stories your brain is telling. Because of course you can do anything. You can jump back into anything you’ve taken a break from, but the really important question is, do you want to? Right? Do you actually want to? Sometimes we do things out of obligation or we just think like, I’ve been doing this for so long and then I took a break I have to keep doing it.

You don’t. You don’t have to keep doing it. You can totally quit and change anytime you want. I believe we have seasons in our life and seasons do Just means naturally there will be shifts, there will be change, dead things are going to fall away, new things are going to grow, right? We want to lean into these natural patterns instead of these unnatural, like, rules and square boxes we draw around our life and who we are.

So first decide if you really want to. And then if you do, I’m going to help you with that. If you don’t, if you’re like, you know what, I actually don’t want to go back to work. I actually don’t want to stay in this career. I don’t want to spend time on social media, whatever it is. Then the only thing you need to do is continue what you’re doing.

Cause you’ve already taken a break. So perfect. You’re already gotten a great start. The only thing you need to do is heal that part inside of you and look at those stories that are going to have you feeling bad or like, Maybe there will be some people that are disappointed. Maybe they will voice that.

How do you handle that? How do you take care of yourself through that? Right? How can you be confident in your decision? That’s all you need to do. Um, and I love helping people with that. It’s. Something I’m really, really good at. So, you know, hit me up. Um, but if you do want to move forward and you do want to ease back in, the question is, and it’s really similar to, I have an ebook, you can find it on my website, but it is.

Really about should I have another baby after loss and that’s kind of like easing back in right if you’ve been trying You had losses you struggled with different challenges. How do we know when we should ease back in so something? I really help people with there is Noticing and asking yourself the question does your desire for the thing outweigh your fear right and this Fear again is coming from our mind.

It can also be coming from our body, right? We could have some, a little bit of trauma, a little bit of nervous system activation, where going back into a situation can feel scary. Um, I remember when Lauren died, I got pregnant soon after, and I needed to go into the hospital for non stress tests in the same room that I delivered my daughter, stillborn, and I I had to do a lot to overcome those fears of walking in, but I wanted to be pregnant again, and I wanted to have a healthy pregnancy, and I wanted to check on my baby, and so I did it, right?

But it took some work. So this fear can be significant, um, It can also teach you things, right? Listen to those fears. What are those fears you have? , for a lot of people with work and with burnout or like not being able to work when they’re heavily grieving and then wanting to go back, , a lot of those fears can actually teach you.

They can be good lessons to just listen to and say, Oh yeah, I noticed that maybe the amount of hours I’m working Was more than I want to, or the way I’m people pleasing the way I’m showing up with my colleagues, the way I deal with my boss, maybe it’s not super healthy and it’s not something that’s sustainable.

So this is a great time to. Grow and to listen and to learn and to get some help and support in order to go into this next phase in this next season, feeling so much more equipped, right? Having more resources, having more tools, having a better relationship with yourself and having a better, um, sense of self confidence.

Because that’s going to help it be so much less draining. So I want you, as you’re deciding, and as you’re moving towards easing back in, I want you to notice the what ifs. What what ifs are coming up, right? It’s really what I was just talking about. What if I can’t handle it? What if this happens? What if somebody says something?

What if I see something? What if this happens? Right? Notice those questions. Learn Listen to them, learn from them, try to answer them, because our brain hates the unknown. And so it’s going to ask these open ended questions, but you can answer them, what if somebody says something to me and it’s really uncomfortable?

So what? So they say something and you feel some feelings or you have to have a conversation. So what? Literally, not in a flippant way, but ask yourself, so what? The worst thing that can happen for most of us is to feel a feeling and you already probably don’t feel comfortable where you are. That’s why you’re thinking, I want to ease back in.

I want to go back into doing the things I was doing before or, um, trying something again. So really, really important. Um, as I said before, check in with your nervous system. Your nervous system is like this bundle of nerves that it’s like going up and down your body. It’s really on the lookout for danger.

And it’s sometimes going to see that hopping back on social media is dangerous because maybe it was painful. Maybe somebody said something. Maybe it’s just emotionally exhausting and that’s painful. Our nervous system doesn’t know the difference between physical actual pain that’s going to kill us, like running away from a tiger versus like.

Just that everyday exhaustion of trying to think of something to post on social media, right? Or interacting with other people that can be really scary sometimes. Um, so check in with your nervous system and see if you need to do some things there in order to heal, in order to calm yourself down, in order to feel safe enough to do what the thing you want to do.

And that is absolutely possible. Um, and sometimes it’s easier than you think, and sometimes it’s a lot of work, but I think it’s absolutely worth it. So I also want you, as you’re easing back in, to take really small steps, right? Let’s dip our toes in the water. Sometimes we think we gotta go from all, then nothing, then all again.

But you don’t. You can take little baby steps. As you need to, um, it’s so, so important and it’s so important to take care of yourself in that way. You also want to watch out for perfectionism or what I call all or nothing thinking. Again, this idea that we have to go jump right back in the deep end and hope that we can swim.

You don’t need to do that, right? Like if I, so my last thing that I did for Lauren’s birthday, I probably trying to think, I think it was selling t shirts and that took a lot of emotional energy for me. Cause like, I don’t want to ask people for money or like, it was just weird. Um, it was fun though. Cause the shirts were super cute and I loved it, but like, say I raised A million dollars.

I did not raise a million dollars, but let’s say I raised a million dollars. Well, if I’m thinking all or nothing, it’s like, oh, if I do that again, if I do a special thing for Lauren’s birthday, I have to raise a million dollars again, or I have to raise two million, or I have to do better, or at least I have to do the same.

It’s like, no, What if I went back to basics? What if I just said, Hey, I’m going to find some little charity that needs a little bit of help and I’m going to help them. What if I just did random acts of kindness? What if I, you know, there’s a million possibilities, but our brain likes to go to all or nothing.

. And so if I think about easing back in and my brain’s telling me, well, you have to raise a million dollars, Amy, that’s what you did before. No, I don’t. . And so we just got to be onto our brain. We just got to catch the way we’re thinking where there’s only like two big choices where we either do nothing or we do a huge thing.

It’s like, no, there’s a million options in between and all around that. Like just open up that creativity so that. You can do what you need to, um, so the other thing, another one with easing in is adjust as necessary. Again, our brain doesn’t like the unknown, so it’s gonna be a little nervous. But what if you just needed to know one step, and then the next step, and the next step, and you trusted that as you got to each step that you would totally figure it out, that you totally could do this, um, if you take it step by step and you knew you could adjust as necessary.

So if it’s going back to a job, maybe you were working full time and you want to start part time. And you make that happen for yourself and then you’re doing part time and you’re like, you know, this isn’t as bad as I thought it was. I think I could add some hours and you just go from there. It really is Okay, or if you start full time and you’re like, oh, I’m not quite ready for this.

Can you scale it back? Right, and I know sometimes it’s easier said than done, but I think it’s also easier than we think sometimes. We always have options. We’re not stuck, we have options. We can make adjustments. We’re going to keep listening to ourselves and we’re going to keep going on.

Um, so yeah, believe you have options. That was my last tip is believe you always have options. We get so pigeonholed. We get so, we get these blinders on and we can only see one way of doing something. You have so many options available to you. All you need to do is really think about what is the result you want for yourself.

What are your goals? And there’s a million ways to get there. We know this, there’s a million ways to make money. There’s a million ways to be more healthy.

There’s a million ways to honor your baby. There’s a million ways to relate to your family, to your friends, to whatever, right? If you’ve had to take a step back from some relationships. Million ways, infinite ways. We get so stuck. So you just got to catch yourself. Um, it’s really common. And again, if you want to get unstuck, I’m your lady.

Um, talk to me. So as we wrap up, I just want to say that if you are needing to take a step back or you do try to ease back in and it’s like, Oh, I’m not quite ready there. Do it intentionally take that step back intentionally. So the difference is between these two statements. Now, just listen to how it feels different.

One is. I can’t handle social media. It’s too much, have you heard that or anything like that versus I choose to protect my piece by controlling what I input in my mind and how I spend my time, right? So instead of feeling like a failure, like we had to quit, we had to run away and hide because we just couldn’t handle it.

We’re going to say no. I take care of myself. I choose where I put my energy. I choose how I handle my time. I’m creating the life I want and I’m becoming the person I want to be. It’s so different, so really look at that story you’re telling and tell a more powerful story. It can be the exact same circumstances,

like I took a break from my podcast this summer. Because I needed to, and I can say, Oh my gosh, I just like, couldn’t get it together. I couldn’t handle everything. Like I just dropped the ball. Right? I dropped the ball on the podcast. I could totally tell that story and I could make myself feel terrible.

Or I can say, I made the best choice for me and my family. Absolutely. And I believe that because we needed that. We moved twice in a year. Like my kids needed their mom. We wanted to be able to just go and do things. And we went on trips and we went camping and, um, we got our house in order and we made new friends and all of that.

It was more important to me than putting out a podcast episode every week, even though I love it, even though it’s a good thing, even though people might say, Oh, you have to put a podcast out every week or else this, this, and this, it doesn’t matter. I made the choice where I wanted to put my energy and I can feel proud of myself, right?

Instead of feeling terrible and shameful about myself, be proud of myself. That is always available to you. You always get to choose the story you tell. And I say. It’s a lot more fun to tell a story where you’re the hero in your own life and where you’re being intentional, even if it didn’t start out that way You can still tell that story because it’s gonna help you in your relationship with yourself And the better your relationship with yourself is the better you’re gonna feel it’s just it’s so so important So anything in your life that you feel like you’ve needed to take a break But you maybe want to ease back in whatever that looks like for you.

Please take care of yourself. Be kind, check in with your nervous system, check in with, if you even really want to do it. And what are your reasons? Like, why are you doing it? Cause that’s really powerful. Take small steps, adjust as necessary and trust that you will. And then believe that you always have options because you always do.

I know it sometimes feels like we get stuck, put on this track that we can’t get off, but it’s absolutely not true. We’re all just like walking through this beautiful world and you have a million different paths you can take. And I believe. That whatever path you choose, however you spend your time, whatever you do with yourself is the right thing for you in this moment.

And I’ll just leave you with that. I’m going to take my own advice. Keep this simple, easing back into the podcast. I have so many cool things coming up. We’re heading into Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month and we’ve got the holidays and I want you to know that I’m here for you. I care about you and I’d love to hear how I can help you.

So hit me up over on Instagram, at amy@smoothstonescoaching. Tell me, tell me what I can do an episode on for you. I will see you next time.