Why We Add One More Thing

Vernae 0:00

Hello, and welcome back to Listening Ears Podcast. I am your host, Vernae Bezear, and if you're here with me today, I'm so glad that you are. Today, we're talking about something that can look really small on the outside, but mean so very much underneath. That habit of doing one more thing before we do the thing that is actually for us. One more cleanup, one more text, one more favor, one more little something before we let ourselves rest, breathe, or simply tend to our very own needs. And if I'm being honest, that is a pattern I know very well. It's one I've had to notice, question, and slowly unlearn because after a while it stops being about the task itself and it becomes about what we believe we have to do before we're allowed to get to ourselves. So if you've ever found yourself putting your own care at the bottom of the list, even if just for a few minutes, this conversation is just for you.

The Small Delays With Big Meaning

Vernae 1:52

Let's get into it. There's a pattern I used to have, and if I'm being honest, sometimes I still have to catch myself with it. Every time it was finally time to do something for me, I would suddenly find one more thing to do first. Not because it was urgent or if I didn't do it, the world would stop spinning, but because somewhere along the way I got used to myself after everything else. And what looked small on the outside was actually saying something much deeper underneath. And maybe you know exactly what I'm talking about. Maybe you're finally about to sit down and eat, and then suddenly you're wrapping up food or wiping counters or straightening up because that is exactly what I do, or what I used to do. Or maybe you are getting ready to leave to go to the hair salon, and instead of getting dressed and going, you decide now is the perfect time to make pancakes and check your emails, and somehow that time turns into forty-five minutes, an hour, and sometimes that thing that I want to do for me doesn't happen.

When Responsibility Is Self-Postponement

Vernae 4:36

That's exactly what I want to talk about today because for a long time I didn't think it was a problem. I didn't even realize that it was happening. I thought it was just me being responsible, helpful, on top of things. And I thought I was being the kind of woman who makes sure everything is handled and taken care of. And to be fair to me, some of that was true, but it wasn't the whole truth. The deeper truth was that I had built a habit of delaying myself. I had gotten so good at making my own needs negotiable. I've been really good at letting my own care come last. And I think a lot of women know this pattern so well that we don't even hear how loud it is anymore. Because it sounds perfectly normal. It sounds like discipline or like being a good mother or a good partner, a good woman, right? A good whatever. Sometimes what looks like responsibility is just once again another form of postponement of the self. And sometimes what looks at what looks like being so good at handling everything is really the inability to let care come to me directly. That was a hard truth for me because I had to ask myself an even deeper question. Why do I keep putting one more thing between me and my own care? Why did rest feel more comfortable after exhaustion or depletion than before it? Why did I always have to pause my pleasure? And why do I keep acting like my needs are this type of reward at the end of a very hard labor instead of something I was allowed to meet while I actually still had the energy to do it. And that right there for me is the real conversation that I had with myself. Because this has nothing to do with time management or about me being busy.

How Women Get Conditioned To Wait

Vernae 8:56

This is about conditioning. This is what gets taught without anybody sitting us down and saying it out loud. Growing up, I could venture to say that some of us were praised. Some of us women, I would say, were praised for being the one who always handles it. Some of us learned that our value wasn't how useful we could be. Somewhere in there, we started confusing ourselves with being needed and being loved. Some of us grew up watching women around us give and give and give until there was barely anything left, and then turn around and call it devotion and dedication. Some of us inherited a version of love that always looks like labor. Because when I think about the woman that many of us grew up around, I can see it so clearly. Take care of the family first, the children first, your husband first, the guests first, work first, then maybe, just maybe if there is a little bit of time, and if there is a little bit of energy, if there's anything left over, then and only then can you take care of yourself. Even in those moments, it still felt rushed or guilty, or maybe it was interrupted. So no, a lot of us definitely did not create this pattern or invent it on our We watched it, we were raised in it, we lived inside it for so long that it started to feel like our identity. I'm just the kind of woman who can't relax until everything's done. Or I'm just the kind of woman who always wants to make sure that everything's just right. One of the biggest shifts for me in my own life has been learning that just because something is familiar does not mean it is mine to keep. Right? I I I didn't have this big dramatic reinvention. I didn't wake up one morning and say, that's it. I'm never putting myself last ever again. However, me learning to hear myself in the moment, me noticing when I'm about to delay myself, that has been the turning point for me. I don't say, or let me rephrase that. I don't say often, because I catch myself, but I don't say often, let me just do this first. And you would think that that sentence, that phrase is harmless. And right, it I guess it could be. But it's not that it's a bad sentence. The problem is what exactly that habit reinforces when it happens all the time. It basically says that if every act of care for me has to stand behind one more task, then what I'm practicing is definitely not responsibility. What I'm practicing is the belief that I come after everything else. And that mindset, that mindset shift really, really changed a lot for me. I started to realize that it wasn't just a scheduling thing or a scheduling habit. It was a belief, a belief that I held very tightly to. You know, it wasn't one of those loud beliefs. It was one that I practice. One that I quietly said to myself, care could wait. I can postpone what it is I want to do, it's no big deal. And once I started to see that belief in action, I could not unsee it.

The Hidden Cost Of Coming Last

Vernae 16:56

Because there is an absolute cost to always being the one who waits. There's a cost to being the last person on your list. You know, I had to really think about it and and frame it in my mind, and I missed moments of softness and peace, and I began to train my body not to expect relief. A part of me started to believe that the needs that I had or were feeling was more like some type of interruption. I had gotten so used to overriding those feelings and not recognizing those signals that were coming, that were going off. Being hungry, using the bathroom. And as an educator, that that always gets me, right? Waiting to use the bathroom. Or if I was tired, that that wasn't a priority, that wasn't a need, that was something that was leader. And pleasure. Pleasure definitely became a leader. And as I mentioned in previous episodes, that word leader, later literally has a way of becoming never if you're not careful. And this is exactly why this matters. Because it's not about getting to the hair salon on time. I mean, it is, you know, if you have an appointment and you want to be out early, but it's not about getting to the salon on time. It's not about drinking your coffee while it's hot. Right? It's more about the relationship that you have with yourself. It's more about whether you receive what it is that you need. And it's about whether your needs get to matter before you are born all the way down. I think that one of the most painful things women do is call self-neglect responsibility. We say things like we're just handling business or making sure everybody has what they need. I mean things have to get done. And we know that, and life is real and it's moving and it's never stopping. But that's not handling life. Delaying yourself so consistently that you no longer know what it feels like to be something for you that isn't life. And that became another. Big realization for me.

Learning To Receive Without Earning

Vernae 22:06

Healing started looking like letting something be for me without decorating it with productivity, without earning it first. I had to learn how to let care be simple. And that may sound small, but it's not. It's big. For some of us, receiving is harder than doing. Doing feels strong and safe. But receiving asks us to be still enough to notice ourselves. Receiving asks us to believe that we matter before our checklist is complete. And for women who have spent years being good at carrying and solving, that can feel really uncomfortable at first. Because when you're used to being the one who holds everything, there is this strange vulnerability in just letting something be for you. Even if that something is so very small, like drinking your coffee when it is hot, or using the bathroom, when you literally feel the urge to use the bathroom. Declaring out loud, I am tending to me. That is not selfishness, my friends. That is a literal re-education of the nervous system. You teaching yourself a new truth. I do not have to finish everything before I matter. I want to say that again because I know some of us need to hear it all the way. I do not have to finish everything before I matter. And that is the literal shift. Not that you're going to stop caring for others or that you're not going to be thoughtful. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I no longer want to live by the rule that the people I love get the best of me. And I, on the other hand, get whatever scraps are left after the day is done. I no longer want to keep acting like self-abandonment is just part of being a loving woman. Because it truly, truly is not. Some of us learned to make ourselves last because it kept the peace. Because if you handled it first, no one could complain. You did something, which means that you weren't lazy or selfish. If you stayed ahead of everything that everybody needed, maybe you could stay ahead of their judgment too.

Fear, Identity, And Being “Good”

Vernae 26:42

Sometimes that one more thing is not just about the task. Sometimes it is about the fear of what it means if you do not actually do the task. Who will be disappointed? Who among us will notice? Who will have something to say? That is why this is so much deeper than habits. It's about identity. It's about the stories that we've carried and who we're allowed to be. Am I still a good woman? If I don't clean up first? Am I still loving? If I let myself rest while something is unfinished. Those aren't small questions. But I do think that healing eventually asks them. And I think some of the strongest women I know are not the women who can carry the most. Always honest. It's ninety-nine point nine percent of the time not urgent, and it doesn't need to happen right now. And I can rest, I can eat, I can leave, I can receive, and I can do all of that without apologizing to myself for it. And that has been really powerful. The new patterns that I'm creating, they're not always huge. Right? Sometimes it's okay, I'm done in the kitchen, and now I'm going to take a shower. And not second guessing myself to say, oh, well, I could also do this, and I could also do that. The new pattern that's being created is simply refusing to call your own avoidance or disappearance of yourself maturity.

A Gentle Practice To Interrupt Patterns

Vernae 32:16

So if this is you, my dear listener, I want to give you something gentle to carry out of here with this episode. The next time you're about to do something for yourself, and that little voice says, Let me just do one more thing first. Pause there. Not forever, just long enough to notice. And ask yourself, what am I making this mean? Am I making this mean that I'm good? Responsible? Am I comfortable receiving before I have produced enough? Am I delaying myself? Because this thing truly matters more right now? Or is it because I've been trained to believe that I have to come last? All of those questions can open up a lot. And I want you to try something else. Let one act of care come directly to you this week. That is, without earning it first. Without doing something in order to receive the rest. Let one thing you do this week be simply for you. Let care meet you sooner. That is what I want for all of us. Not just more self-care talk, but more language surrounded around choosing you. I want you to actually cause an interruption of your pattern. The truth is, if you keep pushing yourself to the bottom long enough, you start to feel far away from your own life. And I don't want that for you. And I definitely don't want that for me either. I want a life where care is not always late. I want a life where love doesn't require depletion. I believe we can build that. We can build it slowly and honestly and together. One interrupted pattern at a time. One moment of saying, I'm actually doing blank now. That is not selfish. It is you coming back to yourself in a very real, real and honest way. Not in some type of quote or performance, but in the kitchen or in the car. Right there. There is where the change happens. You do not have to earn rest. You do not have to finish everything before you matter. You're allowed to meet yourself sooner. And if when you start it, it all feels unfamiliar, that's okay. Familiar is not always the same thing as true. You need to find what is true for you. And that healing sometimes looks like breaking the habit of making yourself wait. So this week, I want you to notice your one more thing. Notice where it shows up, notice what it interrupts, and then when you can, choose differently. Even once, that one choice matters. Because every time you stop the delay, you're teaching yourself a new truth. I am here too. I count too. My life does not start after everything else is handled. And that is where I want to leave you today.

Final Reminders And Sendoff

Vernae 38:46

Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being here. And thank you for growing with me in real time. I'm Vernae, your host, and this is Listening Ears Podcast. Until next time, you can't do that.