As a parent, experiencing the worst possible thing can provide valuable perspective.
Despite the devastation of losing her daughter, our guest on this episode learned how to prioritize herself and reinvent her life to achieve sustainability, richness, serenity, and happiness.
She shares her story and ways to practice true self-care so that you can live a life of impact despite the tragedy.
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Episode Summary with Timestamps
(1:08) Suzanne shares her story of the sudden death of her daughter.
(2:46) What was meant to be her death and how it changed her.
(4:52) Why is it so hard for us to take care of ourselves?
(8:48) We are in “default mode” when we’re daydreaming.
(10:21) Planning out your self-care time.
(12:25) The importance of self-care in your life.
(17:04) Being willing to get uncomfortable in order to be happy.
(20:02) The key is understanding that anything that is uncomfortable in this moment will become comfortable in another.
About Suzanne
Suzanne Falter is the author of a memoir about her daughter Teal’s death, Free Spirited; How My Daughter Healed Me from the Afterlife. She is also an intuitive coach who helps people find relief from crises, confusion, and stress. Suzanne hosts the Self-Care for Extremely Busy Women podcast where she brings better self-care to thousands of busy people each week in 98 countries around the globe.
Connect with Suzanne
Website: https://suzannefalter.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/svfalter
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/selfcareforextremelybusywomen
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suzanne_v_falter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuzanneFalter
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@suzannevfalter
Links Mentioned in This Episode
Book: Bored to Brillant
Book: Free Spirited
Podcast: Self-Care for Extremely Busy Women
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Transcript of this Episode
Toni-Ann Mayembe
As a mother, there are some things that are difficult for us to navigate, like parenting a strong willed child facing judgment and shame from others on how you’re parenting, and also coping with your child saying those three hurtful words. But all of those things pales into comparison to losing your child. But my guess Suzanne was able to endure the pain of losing her daughter and get perspective. After her daughter passed, Suzanne spent two years not working and learned a lot about self care. Hey there, my name is Tony, and on the podcast host of real happy mom, the weekly podcast for busy working moms who need help with time management and achieving their big goals without pulling their hair out. And in this episode, my guest Suzanne will navigate the importance of self care, and how we can begin to practice self care so that we can be more present happy and intentional. Before Suzanne shares with us some of the practical ways that we can start to practice self care, we’re gonna back up and we’re going to start with her story.
Suzanne
My life was dramatically changed in 2012, by the sudden death of my 22 year old daughter Thiel. And at the time, I was an internet marketer, I was burned out, I hated my life, I was a workaholic, I had lost complete sense of my values. And in the process of grieving her death, I really reinvented and I became a different person, for lack of a better word
Toni-Ann Mayembe
and one blog post, in particular, you said something and I was just like, I really like how you said that you’re like, true self care requires tuning into your deepest selves and becoming intimate with the small and neglected person inside. And I was like, Whoa, like, that is like, really what it is. So I know you shared about your daughter, and how that kind of led to getting to where you are now. But during that process, and in that journey, like what were some of the things that you learned as far as self care, so that you could get to this place of healing, and be able to help others?
Suzanne
Well, you know, I had never really been through a serious crisis. Before I had left a marriage, I had come out as lesbian, I’d done big things. But I didn’t register them as crises. This was an unqualified crisis. And I think one of the big things I learned was the value of crisis, and that everything does actually happen for a reason. And I really, really needed to hit the reset button. And I didn’t know what my values were. And I remembered thinking that, you know, when she was she had a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest, two of them, in fact, and within six days, we had to take her off life support, because she had brain damage. And she, she couldn’t sustain life. And, you know, in that process, I discovered that it was probably what was meant to be her death, I discovered acceptance very quickly, I was never, you know, mad at God, or all of the stuff that you hear people go through as, as a natural part of grief, I just didn’t go through it. But what I did go through was a complete sort of disgust with the way my life had been up to that point, and a real vow to become a better person, because she was that better person, she was a very free spirited, very present, very honest, and very jubilant person who went all over the world with her backpack, and her little travel guitar, playing music on the street for people and living on very little money somehow. And, you know, every day was an adventure for teal. And for me, I was like, all about making the money and I got to achieve and my ambition is the most important thing. And this just got me to slow the heck down. And in fact, Toni-Ann I did not work for two entire years after her death. I just I lived on my savings, I lived in a friend’s house for free, you know, I just like, did life on the super cheap, which was possible in California. And you know, I just kind of totally let go. And I think that letting go is what we’re all so afraid of. Because we’re also very busy in this life. And we’ve got these high expectations that we pin on ourselves. And, you know, what if life wasn’t about all that achievement, you know, till left behind this beautiful little journalist kind of ratty spiral notebook, and on every page at the bottom, she wrote, be and you know, or just being and she would say that say, now come on, mom just be like, What the heck is that supposed to mean? I don’t know. But what it meant was calm down and be present. Because this is reality right here right now. It’s not that anxious projection you’re putting together in your mind it is not definitely What happened in the past? Because that happened that isn’t happening right now. You don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know anything really, you just know how to be. When you really honest with yourself,
Toni-Ann Mayembe
I just want to know, why is it so hard for us as moms like to do the self care and to take care of ourselves.
Suzanne
Because the programming is don’t the programming and the culture is avoid thinking of yourself focus entirely on everybody else. And we all know, it’s the airplane metaphor, you got to put on the oxygen mask first. And, you know, I learned about self care from TEALS death, that two year period taught me fundamental things about setting boundaries, asking for help, creating more time for myself to make things happen, being more relaxed and more forgiving of myself. That was the biggest lesson, because I had been such a perfectionist and I had been so driven and I had been so hell bent on achieving and impressing people and having the perfect family and having the perfect job and making you know, and it was all just kind of nonsense. In the end, none of it actually meant anything. And I was able to see that entails death. Because when you’re hanging out at the edge of life when someone has died, and particularly in her case, because her organs were donated. So I was I became connected to the young woman who got her heart and her kidneys. And, and you know, when you’re in that space, nothing matters. But the here and now, it is a very true thing. And, you know, there are such grave matters on the table that everything else seems insignificant, and it really becomes clear how much we’re worrying about things that don’t matter. I remember making little veggie pro cats for my children when they were toddlers like this, oh, get him to eat veggies. And my son was like Joe hot dog and spaghetti for his entire childhood, you know, like, never ate a green vegetable. And as an as a friend’s family. We’re all farmers, they used to make fun of him. And today, he’s a happy, healthy, striving adult who eats plenty of vegetables. none of it mattered, didn’t need the chick did veggie croquettes. You know, he really didn’t. But that was me thinking I will be an inadequate mother if I don’t over produce. And my message is often about letting go of the inner perfectionism, because then we end up projecting it on our kids. And that’s actually particularly unhelpful.
Toni-Ann Mayembe
Yes. Now, I wanted to switch gears just a little bit, because, like I said, I was on your website and reading through several of the blog posts. And there was one that really in particular got my attention about self care, you gave some things that I didn’t even really think about where you were saying, like, practicing to slow down a little or dare to do nothing. And I was like, I haven’t even thought about these things. But I was just wondering, like, how did you even get to this place of daring to do nothing, and slowing down a little late? Where did this come from?
Suzanne
It all came from my two years of literally doing nothing once I tried, and I tried, and it failed. And a couple more times, I rose my head up and tried every time it failed. And I figured you know, the universe knows more than me about this. And I found myself daydreaming for the first time in a long time. And then I read a really wonderful book called bored to brilliant by a woman who had done a survey of 20,000 people about their over productivity, and they’re too much busyness. And she found, neurologically speaking, we are in what they call default mode, when we’re brand new, just kind of daydream. And we don’t have any particular activity in front of us. And it’s when the brain problem solves. And if we don’t give the brain enough space to problem solve, if we think consciously, we have to come up with the solution right here, right? Now. Let me get my little pen out. And I’m going to make notes and I’m going to, you know, click away on links or whatever. Well, instead of that, just sitting, not even trying to come up with the answer. This is why we get inspirations in the shower. It’s one of the few times we’re in default mode. Because we’re and particularly, you know, in our current culture of the last 20 years where screens have really began to send more and more and more firehose of information at us. The amount of time we spend in default mode is quite low. And we’re actually at risk of evolving into a different species ultimately, because without default mode, we can’t get the divine inspiration that is around us all the time. You know, I’m not even speaking religiously or spiritually, it’s just the inspirations out there, and the only way you can receive it is to slow down enough To here and
Toni-Ann Mayembe
another thing that I know that I liked in that blog post that I was telling you about is making a plan big or small to take care of your needs. Because again, we always seem to put kids and family and work as a priority above ourselves. But definitely taking that time. And planning it out, I think is huge.
Suzanne
One of my favorite things to tell people to do. And I mentioned it a lot on the on the show self care for extremely busy people, or busy women, I guess, one of the things I really mentioned is this question, what do I need right now. And most of us struggle to answer it, you know, you might know you need like ice cream, okay. But you really might need to ask for a raise. And if you can have a few minutes of default mode that’ll come to you. So for me being in the flow with what’s happening in the here, and now is just as important as the schedule. And I make a little breakdown of my day where I go into, you know, I’m going to have the self care zone for 30 minutes, but I don’t know what I’m going to do in that self care zone. And it might be, you know, sitting in the hot tub, but it might be crying might be having a good cry. Or if I’m troubled or journaling, or, you know, meditation always seems to wind its way in there. Because it really needs to that’s so very good for our brain. And sometimes self care is having last night’s green beans for breakfast, or you know, whatever you feel motivated by, but it’s also having a zone a few times a day, which is for you. And mothers listening to this, who has who have kids that keep on the run, you know, soccer age, or cow, toddlers or babies or whatever. The point is that you have demands on you. And you get to have your own time too. And I am here as your advocate, as is Toni-Ann. And we are going go Mom Go head for the software.
Toni-Ann Mayembe
Yeah, and I and I think a lot of times like we scheduled things out and put things at least for me, I can see right now my planner right now I have things blocked out. But I love how you said just blocking out 30 minutes of self care time. So I know that I have certain times where I highlight it. And I’m like, Okay, this is for me, but actually like blocking out every day. 30 minutes. I like that one even better.
Suzanne
Yep. And you know, one of the things you can do is squeeze it in before everybody wakes up. My mom used to get up at a dead silent house every morning. And I was always like, why is she getting up so early? What a mistake. She that was her self care time before the four kids started, you know, rampaging through the house and the work at home husband, et cetera, et cetera. Right before bed, I have found, you know, I have a high high demand dog. And I really have to give her a run in the morning or she’s trouble. And, you know, I have other responsibilities in our home, and I need to do those, I can’t meditate first thing in the morning anymore the way I used to. So I have started finding my little meditation zone is before I cooked dinner, you know, I just get in there and do that then. And that seems to work. You know, that seems to keep me able to do these things for myself. And at different stages of our lives, we will have a lot more time for self care. I actually spend a couple hours a day on self care, but I’m in my 60s. And you know, no longer taking care of children or, you know, I’m still working full time. But you know, I find that as you get older, you need more, for sure.
Toni-Ann Mayembe
Now, what about this one point where you said to give yourself adequate resources, this one that I like really perked me up here? Because I was like, Okay, where’s she going with this adequate resources? I want you to talk to us about that one.
Suzanne
Well, resources we always know is kind of COVID the money right? And ran resources is are you in debt? Are you financially confused? Are you a compulsive spender? Are you spending money without thinking about it? Are you underpaid? You know, I hate to say it, but a whole lot of people in our world are underpaid. And they over deliver, do you leave work way later than everybody else? But somehow the salary doesn’t reflect it, you know, that kind of thing. That’s where we have to get our resources together. And in the book I just launched a few months ago, free spirited. I actually talk a lot about how I found in my two years of real self discovery and healing after my daughter’s death that I had a compulsive financial issue around adding and overspending and financial confusion or what we call financial vagueness. I was not spending enough time really thinking about my money and paying attention to it and being organized with it. And now every A Monday morning, I balanced my checkbook, it’s kind of basic, I just go through all those little auto charges, and I weed things out and I find, oh, that’s shouldn’t be in there. And I request refunds. And I really look at my money in detail. Sometimes people have to do it every day. But what I get from that is this fantastic feeling of being grounded, and having enough and resources. You know, resources can also be time, it can also be your physical health, it can also be emotional support. Those things are also important resources. But for me, resources begins with, you know, the home the money, the Do you have enough for food, can you pay your bills, the basics of our world today. And boy, when you have enough, it’s, it’s a comfort, and you can calm down. And then you can consider things like taking time and slowing down. And you know, maybe it is time to request that vacation that you’ve not claimed in three years, the amount of unclaimed vacation time is something like a billion hours in America, you know, and the risk, did you know that women who do not take vacation in five to eight years are something like 800 times more likely to have a cardiac arrest, or a heart attack. I mean, vacation. Actually, it’s 800% more likely to have a cardiac event. And honestly, I just think we have to give ourselves the basics, and then build from that to be able to get to a place of calming down. And I say this as someone who lived on very little money. But I thought it was interesting because my resources, bartering and living for free, and you know, all kinds of stuff.
Toni-Ann Mayembe
And it’s funny that you bring this up, because I literally just had a conversation with my husband, when we were driving, actually come back home to actually record this podcast. I was telling him I was like, I finally feel like in a comfortable place financially. Like I don’t want to put extra burdens on myself because he really wants a new house. And I’m like, I don’t have new house money. Like I like my life. Like let’s not make it more complicated. And I was like, I can literally go into the grocery store. And if I want something, I’ll get it. Like, I don’t have to think about like, oh, do I have enough like, oh, I have to stay within my budget. Like of course like yeah, like, I’m not gonna go crazy. But I’m just saying if I see like, you know, a fancy chocolate, I’m like, Oh, that looks good. I want to try it out. Try it. And it was a time when Yeah, I could not do that. But it feels so good. And like you said it’s so freeing. When you have the resources because I know a lot of people would like to say like, oh, money can’t buy you happiness, but it definitely makes him feel better when you have it. I can definitely say that. It can
Suzanne
buy you Surat Yes, it can buy. And what I hear is you have financial yesterday, you know how much you have. I lived for a long time in the place of vagueness, like, yeah, I could probably buy that chocolate. Just get it. Okay, I want it fine. And then it’d be like chocolate or those shoes or that you know, vacation. You just went on the incredible human desire to overindulge Israel. Oh, yeah. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. It just means we got to have the underpinnings the infrastructure in place to support it.
Toni-Ann Mayembe
Absolutely. Now, there’s one other thing that I wanted to have you break down a little bit and that is being unwilling to be uncomfortable, because I think a lot of times, especially for me, I’ll speak for myself. I like my nice little cushy, comfortable life. I think. I like my life. I like my life. But when you’re talking about getting uncomfortable, where are you talking about as far as being willing to get a little uncomfortable?
Suzanne
Well, we’re very adaptable. Human beings are remarkable that way. And if I wanted, for instance, I was offered this job writing fiction for an investor who was willing to pay me well, to write a series of novels. This was going to be my whole new work totally different. Brand new. I had published fiction 20 years earlier, but it’s been a long time since I’ve written a novel. And I only published one. So I was like, oh my god, can I do this? Can I actually do this and I hadn’t worked for two years. That was way out of my comfort zone at first. And of course, my perfectionist kicked in and I was kinda like, the whole time I was writing the first novel, I was really uncomfortable, but it actually turned out to be a pretty good book. And the investor was very pleased and hired me to write seven more of these books. And one by one they became more comfortable and I became more relaxed and I Think they became better. The key is understanding that anything that is uncomfortable in this moment will become comfortable in another moment, you know, you just have to get used to it. And that is very much necessary when you want to make lasting sustainable changes. For me, I found that living without any particular idea of what I was going to do next, that took a hit that was highly uncomfortable for me, because I had been like, so focused and so organized. And so you know, ambitious, I’m going to have this business, I’m going to make that money, I’m going to reach these people. And when you grieving a crisis, you lose all of it, you just lose your mojo completely. And I kept sitting with this question of, well, what am I going to do when I finally do something, and then the friction showed up, but I was really having to surrender to the process of not knowing and let the solution present itself. And it did. You know, and I just had another year like that, where that project ended, and I tried various things. And you know, well, maybe I’ll do self care for corporate or maybe I’ll try to really monetize the show and all these things. And they really weren’t working. And again, I was living on my savings. And then I got approached by someone to write a biography about my father, who was a well known artist about whom no books have ever been written. And it was the perfect project for the perfect time. And and I’m very delighted to be working on that project. Now. It’s exactly what I would love to be doing and didn’t even know it. Like I hadn’t thought to myself, Oh, this is a great time to write that book about your dad, you know, that the woman who commissioned me from the National Museum that hired me, had read my new memoir, free spirited, and thought, oh, this person can write memoirs, how about one about her father? So here we are, I never would have expected that to come out of the book.
Toni-Ann Mayembe
Yeah, Suzanne shares several ways that we can better take care of ourselves. My hope is that you’re able to find at least one that you can practice this week. Whether it’s scheduling 30 minutes of self care every day, doing nothing for a few minutes, or checking to make sure that you have adequate resources. But before you go, Suzanne has one last thing for you.
Suzanne
Okay, you High Achiever mothers, just it’s time to chill out. So come on over to the podcast self care for extremely busy women. Or take a look at the memoir free spirited how my daughter healed me from the afterlife because there are books about the value and podcasts about the value of stopping and slowing down just enough to hear yourself think slowing down to the speed of life.
Toni-Ann Mayembe
Now that’s it for this episode of The Real happy mom podcast. Check out real happy mom.com/ 204 for the show notes. And be sure to be back here next week. Same time, same place, take care and with lots of love
