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In this episode of The Optimized Mom Podcast, I chat about how important it is for each of us to share the truth as we see it—even when it might feel embarrassing or unnecessary—because we never know when our words could be the ones another person sorely needs.
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Transcript:
Note: This transcript was produced using speech-recognition software and has received minimal edits. If possible, I encourage you to listen to the audio version.
Welcome to the Optimized Mom podcast where we explore strategies for trading burnout, overwhelm and exhaustion for simplicity, efficiency and joy. Why? Because I want you to have the time and energy to care for yourself, have fun with your family and share your sparkle with the world.
Well, hey there, Anissa here and lately I have been thinking a lot about this podcast about the blog I write, and about my social media accounts. I really enjoy creating content and sharing things that I’ve learned, but sometimes my inner critic really starts to take over and she will say things like, why are you wasting your time writing all that stuff? Nobody reads it anyway. Or why would you tell people that that is so embarrassing. Or everybody already knows that thing that you shared. Why are you adding more noise to the world when so many other people have already said it better?
And when that part takes over, it gets really hard for me to create things because creating not only seems pointless but kind of embarrassing. And in those moments, I will sometimes think about shutting mama goes beyond down altogether. But in those moments, I will typically fall back on my habits. My commitment, as I’ve said before, is I like to spend 25 minutes every day writing and I will stick with my commitment and write.
And before I write, I like to sit quietly for a few minutes and just repeat to myself, what will I share? How can I serve? I would love to say that I have this fabulous, like content plan. I’m envious of people that have that and have all their keywords researched and, and all that. I am not that savvy. I am really looking for nudges. So I’ll ask, what will I share? How can I serve? And most of the time I already have a little bit of a glimmer of a topic in mind and that will help me flush it out. But sometimes I don’t have any idea at all and just sitting there and repeating that to myself, helps jumpstart things.
So anyway, earlier this week, I didn’t really feel inclined to write at all, but I sent out a few sentences to my email list and amazingly, I actually had two people hit reply. Replies to my newsletters that I send are pretty rare. I mean, from time to time someone will write back, but most of the time I think we’re so used to getting like automated emails that we almost don’t think there’s another person on the other end. I know some of the people, people that send me emails, I think, oh, it must be an assistant that sends that out or, you know, it’s her media manager or whatever that’s going to read it if I hit reply. But I actually am the person who sends my emails back out and um who will read them and respond to them when people reply.
So I sent out this email, I got the responses and it was awesome because I was able to make this really nice connection with two of my readers and we’re email buddies now and I can’t stop thinking about what one of the women said. She said she’d been, um, studying lots of personal development stuff and reading lots of books on, you know, kind of getting her life together. And what she said to me is so nice. She said “apparently all I needed was this email nudge from you this particular morning because it really hit the spot and spoke to me in a way that these books never had.”
And that almost makes me want to tear up a little because it’s such an important reminder that we never know when we are going to be the key that finally fits in the lock for somebody and opens the door. I certainly didn’t know it was going to be that I was going to be that key for her. And just as importantly, she didn’t know that she was going to be that key for me. She had no way of knowing that I was feeling discouraged and like I might be wasting my time sending an email out to people at all. I had no idea that she was reading a bunch of books looking for answers and needed things said another way, but we both shined our light. We found each other and we connected.
And this week, there have been more little nudges coming from the universe to keep creating. The woman who commented on my post about what to do when you’re diagnosed with breast cancer, who said she had just been diagnosed and she was so grateful for the information. It was helping her. There was a woman who came to a tiktok live that I did that I almost didn’t do because I thought nobody’s going to care about this stuff and told me she was inspired to work on boosting her energy. That was sort of the topic I was talking about after seeing how effervescent I was.
And just as a side note, it almost feels embarrassing to share these stories with you because I don’t want to come across as bragg-y. It feels very bratty. I feel like junior high time where the girls would say like, “oh she thinks she’s so hot”. I assure you guys that I do not think I am so hot, but I share it because you never know if the comment you make or the hug you give or the information you share will be the thing that changes someone’s life.
And every time I have written something, I’ve made a video, I’ve recorded a podcast. I felt a little nudge telling me to share it. And I wanna encourage you that when you feel that nudge, especially if you feel that nudge. And then all of a sudden you have the same thing that pops into my head. The thing that says “they know that already don’t bother”. Or “who do you think you are telling somebody that” if, if that part starts to come in and try to squash you down, I encourage you to share any anyway, share these little nudges.
There’s no doubt that 99.9% of the things that you are going to come up with have been said or have been done before. I heard this gentleman named Jim Huling speak recently and he wrote a book called The Four Disciplines of Execution. That’s what he’s most known for. And he said we all dip our buckets into the same well. You know, the ancient philosophers and the modern positive psychology researchers and your favorite podcasters. Everybody’s saying the same thing, but no one is sharing your exact message.
You put your bucket into the well, and you carry what you bring back to your community, however big or however small your community is what you have to say is valuable and there is no one else in the world who can say it like you do.
So in case anyone else listening to this needed another little nudge from the universe. Consider this one, shine your light. Friends strive to stop worrying about how you look whether or not you’re wasting your time or how what you say will be received, strive to live the truth as you see it and then share the truth as you see it whenever you can because you never know who you are going to touch.
And I just had to pop on and record this so that I can go back and listen to it. The next time I am feeling the need to cover up my light. I’m not gonna do it and I don’t want you to do it either. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you soon.
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