Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Unboxed, Unburdened, Unstoppable.
Speaker: I'm Michelle Madrid, and in each episode, I'll be sitting down with guests who have dared to unlock their hidden truths, unburden themselves from life's toughest challenges, and step into their power as the hero of their own stories.
Speaker: I hope these conversations will inspire you to unbox your own journey, find your strength, and embrace the unstoppable within.
Speaker: So, let's dive in.
Speaker: Hi, I'm Michelle Madrid, and I want to welcome you to Unboxed, Unburdened, Unstoppable. This is a space where we come together and we speak truthfully about life as midlife women and empty nesters.
Speaker: It's a place where we open up the boxes that have kept us feeling small in our lives, silenced in our lives, and stuck.
Speaker: And it's a place we come together and explore how we break free. And I want to remind you, if you are navigating this quiet and this complicated and often confusing chapter of midlife and empty nesting, I urge you to just stop whatever it is that you are doing in this moment and listen in, lean in, because today I'm sharing a tool that I really believe is going to help you to transform this often challenging and emotional
Speaker: chapter of life into one of the most powerful chapters of your life. So e and also want to make note that i am on the tail end of a cold. So if I sound a little stuffy and nasally, please forgive me, but stay here with me.
Speaker: And I want to start by just saying something that I think is important to speak out loud and to face. And it's this, for the first time in decades, as empty nesters, as midlife moms, we're not needed the same ways anymore.
Speaker: And oof, that hurts my heart to say. it it it stings to say that, but it's true. And obviously your family still loves you, your friends and your community, they still care. Your pets need you.
Speaker: But so much of the constant daily caretaking and responsibilities that we've spent most of our lives doing day in and day out are shifting.
Speaker: Our roles are shifting. And what's replacing that is tender grief and some moments of loneliness even.
Speaker: but also whole lot of space, space for you. And so I would love for you to take just a moment here with me and reflect on that truth.
Speaker: And I want to ask you this question.
Speaker: When was the last time you, your needs, your desires, your gifts, When's the last time they got to be center stage?
Speaker: When's the last time those things got to be a priority for you? Is this a question I've asked myself? I've journaled on it. Perhaps you want to journal on it too.
Speaker: Because in this season of midlife, of empty nesting, as our roles are changing and we're finding more space,
Speaker: you may find yourself feeling lost. You may find yourself feeling alone, lonely, isolated, grieving.
Speaker: And you may also find something that I tend to describe as a box rattling inside of you. Something that has stayed quiet and hidden for many years that is now rattling and working to get your attention.
Speaker: You know the feeling, you know. And it can be hard to put into words, that is true. But I know that you know the feeling. So often we just sort of blow by those feelings. really important to take note of what we're feeling and what's coming up for us.
Speaker: Because it doesn't always show up loud at first, these um boxes that are rattling. Sometimes it's just a quiet ache that you feel in the pit of your stomach or maybe a pause in your breath or a lump in your throat that you just cannot quite explain.
Speaker: but it's there and it's nagging. And it is so very often triggered by a life shift. A child going off to college, the end of a marriage, a parent or a loved one who passes away, a major life shift.
Speaker: And it can be even as simple and as profound as realizing you no longer recognize the woman in the mirror that's staring back at you.
Speaker: Who is she? You may ask yourself. i my friends, I have been there. I have looked in the mirror and not known the person staring back at me.
Speaker: And to get to her became my passion.
Speaker: And for me, this awakening, This happened in the quiet moments of motherhood. As I've watched my kids grow, as I have experienced feeling them begin to sort of pull away as they step more fully into their own independence.
Speaker: Now, it's natural, i know. It's healthy. i know that too. But that doesn't mean it doesn't sting. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.
Speaker: And it's okay to acknowledge that feeling.
Speaker: Because there's this aching space between pride and pain, isn't there? Then it's okay to say that too. To acknowledge this aching space between the pride and the pain.
Speaker: This experience watching our kids grow. I have felt this so deeply recently, to be honest. And if you follow me on Instagram, you may have already seen um a story that I shared because my daughter recently closed out her freshman year of high school.
Speaker: She's 15 years old, completed a successful freshman year. Now, I already have kids who have left the nest before her. She's my youngest. My daughter is indeed the last home with me.
Speaker: And so it's even somehow more poignant right now. She's got you know, a short time left with me. And
Speaker: she's so independent. She's so smart and she's so driven. I'm so fiercely proud of her. And I am so excited to see who she will become in adulthood.
Speaker: And yet as independent as she is, I still get those phone calls. Maybe you can relate and to this. Those phone calls where I pick up and she's on the other end at school and she's like, mom, I forgot my track shoes.
Speaker: Can you bring them to school for me? And fast. Or the one day she called me during her freshman school year and she said, mom, I forgot. I promised my advisory group at school that I'd bring them all Chick-fil-A today for our meeting.
Speaker: And that was a fun one because she called me at 1045 and she needed this large order of Chick-fil-A by 1130. And everything in that moment, everything that I had planned had on schedule in that moment got turned upside down and on its head.
Speaker: And in those kinds of moments, it's hard not to get just a little bit frustrated. i I certainly felt that. I had a plan for my day, of course, and now have to change things up to help her out and squeeze this need of hers end.
Speaker: But
Speaker: I also remember thinking in the back of my head as I was out doing, getting the Chick-fil-A or taking the track shoes, God, I'm going to miss this when she is off to college. I'm going to miss this.
Speaker: And so it hit me in the shower the other day before one of her closing ceremonies at school, which is also sort of a funny thing. There seems to be now so many ceremonies to close out the end of a school year. I mean, when I was in school, it was kind of like the teacher saying, hey, it's the last day of school. Enjoy your summer. We'll see you in the fall. Bam.
Speaker: Don't let the door hit you on the way out. But today, there are countless closing ceremonies for different facets of the school year. and I was preparing for one of those and maybe you've had the same experience, but there I was, standing in my shower, getting ready.
Speaker: And I just remembered thinking as I was washing my hair, holding my face under the water in three short years, she's going to be gone.
Speaker: And each ceremony I attended as we were closing out her freshman year, Impressed upon me the fact that in three short years, she will indeed be out of the house. And that's how quickly three years goes by.
Speaker: And when she is off to college, my house will feel even more empty. And there's going to be a lot more space because she's my baby.
Speaker: She's the last one. And as I share this with you,
Speaker: my daughter is right in the other room. surely getting ready to ask me for something else she may need today, but I just love being around her. And as excited as I am for her as she moves through high school, as she's here in the summer before her sophomore year, there will be such a sense of grief when she's off to college. I feel it now.
Speaker: I feel it and I have to let myself feel it and process it and experience it. Because at the end of the day, it is a gift. What a gift.
Speaker: Because as I'm exploring and as I am discovering the grief that hits me in those moments in the shower at a closing ceremony, the the grief that hits me out of nowhere, it's actually just the beginning. It's not the end.
Speaker: Certainly, midlife grief opens up things. It shakes boxes you didn't even realize you'd buried.
Speaker: So often we bury these boxes, we don't even realize we're doing it. And they're boxes that whisper things like, hmm, you're only valuable when you're needed.
Speaker: So what happens to your value now that you're not needed in the same ways?
Speaker: Or you should be grateful. Don't be so sad. or how about who are you now without that role? As if these roles are the only things that identify us.
Speaker: These are the kinds of boxes that rattle in this season of life. And This is what I know for sure. They really hurt when we don't talk about them.
Speaker: And those boxes can truly go so very deep.
Speaker: Just a couple of weeks ago, i met a midlife woman in London while I was there on a family trip. And I was talking to her. She was a stranger. We'd never met before.
Speaker: But she reminded me during our conversation just how deep these boxes can go, where we pack parts of ourselves away, we seal them up tight, we think they're no longer there. But what she shared with me was that recently she has lost the equivalent of 40 pounds of weight.
Speaker: And as she shared this with me with pride, she began listing all the reasons that she had committed to this physical transformation. Like she stayed at her health, her mobility at work, the ability to get around and better, um sustained energy, her kids.
Speaker: And all of those things were valid and all of those things were absolutely beautiful. And I listened to her. And then when she was done, I just gently said, hmm,
Speaker: Those things are great and so valid and so important. But the most important reason for you losing this amount of weight is that you are worth it. You're worth it.
Speaker: And she stopped and these big tears welled up in her blue eyes. And you could clearly, clearly see that she hadn't thought of it in that way.
Speaker: She's worth it.
Speaker: And despite all of her success with her recent weight loss, that box of unworthiness was still there. Self-worth.
Speaker: That box of unworthiness was still rattling beneath the surface.
Speaker: And I could clearly see it in her eyes.
Speaker: It was a really profound moment. I could see the longing that this woman held to believe in her own worthiness.
Speaker: That she was truly, truly, truly worthy of the very physical transformation that she was in the midst of.
Speaker: That she was worthy of that.
Speaker: So after ah few moments of this really special conversation. She just smiled at me. and then she said, thank you. Thank you.
Speaker: And that conversation, i'm I'm going to tell you, it was so powerful because it was truth meeting tenderness.
Speaker: Truth meeting tenderness. It gives me the chills to say that because it's such a powerful and magical place of transformation. When truth meets tenderness and that my friend is where unboxing begins not in these loud declarations but in the quiet tender recognition that you are worth looking into the box and that you are worthy of unsealing what's been hidden for so long that you are worthy
Speaker: of naming the box and that you are worthy of gently setting it down once and for all.
Speaker: So here's a question. How do you know when it's time to start unboxing?
Speaker: The answer is the grief that you're holding becomes unbearable. It's no longer sustainable. The grief of lost identity, the grief of missed opportunity, the grief of shifting roles, the grief of kids growing up and leaving the nest, all these moments of grief.
Speaker: There's this quiet, undeniable sensation, and it's a deep knowing, and it starts rattling, and it's trying desperately to wake you up and remind you of what you deserve and are capable of.
Speaker: And when we keep those boxes sealed away, locked away, keeps us from stepping into that that woman who's already there waiting for you to come meet her again.
Speaker: It can be hard to recognize at first, I understand, because as women, we have become masters of boxing it all up. pushing it aside or storing it away, telling ourselves, we'll look at it again when there's more time or when the kids, you know, leave the nest.
Speaker: um But that rattle, it's the part of you that's been waiting to be seen. When we've been putting it off, it doesn't go away. It's still waiting. It's still there and it wants to be opened up. It's the voice of your dreams.
Speaker: your desires, your truth, crying out for your attention.
Speaker: And the rattle can often start with small whispers. It's not necessarily loud at first, but when it goes unanswered, it will get louder until it's undeniable that you must, must unbox.
Speaker: So now if I describe all of that and you're still not sure if this is you or not, it's okay. No judgment here, only love. I'll try to describe it just a bit more literally for you.
Speaker: So the need for unboxing, it might feel like discomfort, a sense of being lost, or purposeless.
Speaker: are directionless.
Speaker: It may even feel like something, some part of you is missing.
Speaker: You might also catch yourself thinking thoughts like, well, what will I do now? What will I do now? Or perhaps, who am I without my kids?
Speaker: Who am now without these roles that I've been showing up for, for years? Who am I now?
Speaker: Or perhaps, is this all there is to life? ah did all of that and now? What's left? What's left of for me?
Speaker: So if you're feeling those rattles, if you're feeling that kind of gnawing internally, in whatever form that takes, whether it's the discomfort or the deep knowing that something needs to shift, I really want you to trust that.
Speaker: Recognize if you're going into self-doubt and shift into trust. Trust your voice. Trust your Intuition, because those rattles that you're experiencing are your invitation, that it is time to unbox.
Speaker: It is time to reclaim your power.
Speaker: And here's what I want you to know. And this is important. You don't have to understand the whole box.
Speaker: You just have to make the commitment to open it.
Speaker: And you began opening the box by naming it. That's step one. That is the absolute first step. It's the invitation. And it is the best place to start.
Speaker: We name the box. We start small because that's powerful. We start.
Speaker: So pause when the ache rises. Pause. Take note. Notice what you're feeling. Notice what you notice.
Speaker: Not what you're telling yourself that you should feel. That's an important distinction.
Speaker: It's not about all the shoulds. It's about leaning into what is actually happening. There are no shoulds in this process. There are no shoulds at all.
Speaker: And then name the box. Notice what you're feeling and then name the box. It's step one. So let me share a story with you. Just this week, i had a moment that really rattled me.
Speaker: We had landed in l LA from London. It was just a quick getaway before my daughter started her summer biology immersion course. And I had marked in my calendar that the first class started June 25th. It actually ended on July 25th, but somehow i had the 25th locked in my brain. We landed in l LA on the 23rd, which was actually day one of biology.
Speaker: We had missed day one of biology. Now, my daughter was upset. She was in the back seat and she was upset. She was disappointed and she was anxious. Her joy flying back from the UK quickly faded into despair. It was like that joyful trip back didn't even happen.
Speaker: And we had fallen into this place of despair and I felt like I disappointed my girl and I immediately found myself feeling shame, shrinking into the box of shame.
Speaker: And I was asking myself in my head, As we drove down the 101, what kind of mother misschedules the first day of summer biology? How could you miss that, Michelle? How could you be so unorganized?
Speaker: And so through this work of unboxing, I now recognize patterns. And so I stopped. I recognized the pattern. I stopped and I named the box. I named the box out loud. I said, this is the box of shame. I know it.
Speaker: And then I ask myself a really important question. And the question is, what's really going on here? I ask, where did this come from? Where did this come from? And just like that, I could hear my mother telling me as a young girl, don't ever disappoint me.
Speaker: That would be the worst thing that you could do.
Speaker: She told me that so many times. Don't ever disappoint me. That would be the very worst thing you could do. Disappointing my mom. for me as a young girl meant that I risked losing her love.
Speaker: And there in that moment on the 101 with my daughter driving away from l LAX, I had slipped back into that sense of shame that I'd learned so many years ago, anytime I disappointed my mom.
Speaker: Anytime I let her down, I went directly to feelings of shame. So this was an old tape that met me in this season of motherhood.
Speaker: It was an old tape that met me on the 101 and I needed to put it on pause and I did. and most importantly, i needed not to judge myself for feeling what I was feeling in that moment, no judgment, just recognition of the feeling and then getting to the root of it.
Speaker: And the end of the story, well, here it is. My daughter was there on Tuesday for day two of summer biology. um She's actually allowed, I think, to miss two or three days. So she's missed one. And if you're gonna miss a day, the first day is not a bad one to miss.
Speaker: And she has quickly caught up. And this week has felt certainly the challenges of um an advanced immersive biology experience, but she's also experienced the excitement of week one and the success that she has been having during this first week of biology.
Speaker: And the truth of the matter is this, and I want you to hear me. Sometimes we slip. Sometimes we slip as moms. Sometimes we slip as partners, as friends. Sometimes we slip.
Speaker: And you can stuff that sense of shame deep within, but here's something I know for sure. We slip, we learn, we get back up.
Speaker: We don't stuff it deep. I don't stuff it deep anymore. I've learned how to unbox. Name the box, step one. Open it up. identify the roots, and start gaining clarity.
Speaker: You see, this process of unboxing, it's not about assigning blame. It's not about assigning blame at all. It's about reclaiming truth.
Speaker: And it's about giving yourself permission to matter again. Permission to matter again. Permission for your feelings to matter again.
Speaker: permission for your desires to matter again. Because as I've said before, and I'll say it again, as it honestly can never be stated too much, it can never be stated too many times, you are not broken. You are not broken.
Speaker: You are not broken. You are becoming. I'm going to say that again. You are not broken. You are becoming. And if your box if that place deep inside of you has started to rattle, let that be your sign.
Speaker: It's time. It's time.
Speaker: It's time. Not because you need to be fixed, but because there is so much more of you waiting to be lived.
Speaker: but Waiting to be lived out loud.
Speaker: So if you're in a season of change, whatever that might look like for you, and if you're asking, who am I now? If you're waking up to the truth that you've outgrown, maybe the box that you once needed to survive, right? Because at one point, those boxes that we created, we needed for survival. They were a protection mechanism, but we've outgrown them.
Speaker: That's okay. No judgment, right? Just understand it. First step, name the box. That's always the first step. Unbox it. Come along with me on the journey.
Speaker: Come along with me. You're welcome here. You're safe here. You're safe to take that step toward the woman you're becoming.
Speaker: and reminding yourself that you're not too late. You're not too late. You are right on time. You're meeting yourself in this season of life where you are, as you are. You're right on time.
Speaker: You're right where you need to be. And I am so, so very glad that you're here. I'm honored that you've committed to being a box breaker.
Speaker: I mean, just say that out loud. Feel the power of it. I am a box breaker. I am a box breaker. You're a box breaker. You're doing this work, and I'm so very proud of you.
Speaker: Until next time, stay unboxed, unburdened, unstoppable, and stay true to you.
Speaker: Thank you for joining me on Unboxed, Unburdened, Unstoppable. If today's story unboxed something within you, share this with a friend, subscribe, and commit to walking this path of power and purpose with us.
Speaker: Remember, you have everything it takes to be the hero of your own life. Until next time, stay unboxed, unburdened, and unstoppable.
