DEEP DIVE: Mara Glatzel on Being "Needy"

0:00Mara Glatzel:You know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it? Yeah, so do we. Here at Designer Shoe Warehouse, we'll give you something to brag about. Like the latest styles from brands you love. Or the trends everyone's obsessing over. Or shoes that make you feel like, well, you. So go ahead, show off a little. Find shoes that get you at prices that get your budget. Head to your DSW store or DSW.com today. DSW, let us surprise you. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell? Laughing in the face of motherhood. This is Amy.

0:37Today, I'm talking to Mara Glotzel. She's an author, intuitive coach, and host of the podcast, Needy. Mara helps humans stop abandoning themselves and start reclaiming their humanity through embracing their needs and honoring their natural energy rhythms. Her superpower is saying what you need to hear when you need to hear it. And she is here to help us believe in ourselves as much as she believes in us. Her new book is Needy, How to Advocate for Your Needs and Claim Your Sovereignty. Welcome, Mara. Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be here. I am so excited to have you. I was just telling Mara before it started that my progress through this book was somewhat slowed, that I was stopping to circle, underline, transcribe.

1:20Seriously, like this book is what I need right now. You say this book is for those of us who have needs, especially those of us who pretend we don't. I identify as a member of that group of people, as probably does everybody listening. Why is that? Why do we do this to ourselves? Yeah, what has been so funny about this book is that I didn't intend it this way, but just the title has become this litmus test for whether or not the book is for you, because people have feelings about the word needy. And either because we feel like we're way too much or because we have needs, I don't know them. I pushed them far away somewhere to the back of my life.

1:59And this happens for so many reasons, but ultimately we receive so many messages over the course of our lives about what it means to have needs and how that makes us appear to other people and how that impacts our sense of belonging or contribution or success. And with all of that messaging and that conditioning, it is little wonder that this is a supercharged topic for people. I think especially for moms, it's really hard to prioritize your needs as a mom. There just seems to be a multitude of messaging that is geared directly towards this idea that moms sacrifice themselves and that's what it means to do a good job.

2:43And if you're not doing that, you're not a good mom, which is so painful. The needs that you prioritize are the needs of everybody around you. And everybody always needs something, right? And that is what being a mom is, to start worrying about other people before yourself. I'm thinking about like the Easter Sunday when my kids were little. I had three kids under five. And like, I get them all in their cute outfits for Easter Sunday. And I have nothing that fits because I'm in, you know, the postpartum time where none of my clothes fit me and hadn't thought about what I was going to wear to church on Easter Sunday.

3:12That's a small, but that's it, right? It's like that all day, every day. Yeah. Or what am I going to eat? What am I feeding myself? Am I just eating things off of my kids' plates? Yeah. That's being a good wife, mother, sister. That's the point you make in the book, right? That's part of the assignment is to self-abnegate like that. Yeah. And that conditioning, it comes at you from every angle. And it can be so challenging, even as you're burnt out, even as you're drowning in it, to pull yourself out and say, I need to matter here. You know, everything is falling apart because I haven't been advocating for myself.

3:53I haven't been prioritizing myself. And also that that's what I'm teaching my kids to do. That's the piece that gets me and kind of keeps me up at night is what am I teaching my daughters about what it looks like to be a mother? You know, I take it as a high compliment that both of them talk about wanting to be mothers all of the time. I'm like, well, you must think, I must make it look like it's a pretty good gig. That's good. Yeah. That's what you want for your life. But in that, I'm always thinking about what kind of mother do I want you to be? What lessons do I want you to learn about what it means to certainly take care of the people in your life who you love, but also to consider yourself amongst the people that you love?

4:37Because if you don't, everything falls apart. I'm going to give you another quote that I like circled and triple underlined. You said this book is for those of us trying to tend to our needs in the hidden corners of our lives. So we do sort of like it does sort of creep in sometimes the messaging like I'm I kind of need to take care of myself a little bit here, but I have to do it over here in the corner at midnight, five o 'clock in the morning, right where nobody can see it. What do we think that's part of it? Yeah, the amount of mothers who I talk to who are trying to wake up earlier, to have some sort of morning routine before their children wake up are many, many, many, many.

5:15And yes, absolutely. Sometimes the reality of your situation is that there's nobody to ask for help, or there's no way to tap out and get five minutes to brush your teeth or wash your face or do whatever it is that you need. That is true. But by and large, we're not asking for that time. And we're not believing that we deserve it either because our kids' needs are so high or because we're a stay-at-home parent and we feel some kind of way about what that means to, that it's our job to be there for our kids all of the time and never have a break. And it's complicated. But what I do know is this, is when I became a mother, my needs mattered more and not less because my kids mattered.

6:03All of a sudden I had these two children that mattered to me more than anything else in my life. And I want to be as present and emotionally regulated and fun and loving towards them as I possibly can. And that corners of my life piece, what it showed up for me is I was expecting the most of myself without giving anything to myself, anything that I needed in order to be emotionally regulated, in order to be present with my kids. And it took noticing, hey, when I just get out of bed, my three-year-old jumps on me and I just kind of launch into my day. The puppy needs to go out. Things need to happen.

6:46and I don't take a minute to get dressed. I no longer live in an upstairs, downstairs, but I always call them my downstairs pajamas, which is like some sort of leisure wear situation. But to get dressed and put on a bra, all of these things dramatically impact my capacity to be patient and present with my kids then in that time before they go to school. and that matters. It doesn't take a ton of time or energy to prioritize yourself in small ways, but I find that by and large, parents that I talk to are operating under the story of, oh, I'll take care of myself on the other side of. Right. Once she's in kindergarten, once he's potty trained, once.

7:34Which could be a decade of your life. Yes, yes. Speaking from the other side, I have kids in college. Yes, yes, it can be very far in the advancing. And so like, let me just get this kid's driver's license behind us, whatever. Yeah, there's always something. And you make the point in the book that we do this to ourselves, like this can wait, this can happen only at 430 in the morning, if I can manage to get up that early once in a while, while the needs of people around us are allowed to be non-negotiable, we will continue to serve those people's needs, my partners need to, you know, work out three days a week or play golf or see friends for book club for dinner or whatever it is, we will further sort of put our own needs off because the needs of our eight-year-old or our spouse, those are non-negotiable.

8:20It's just our stuff that needs to wait. Absolutely. And this was hard for me to learn because I had been taught or had picked up somewhere along the way that if my needs mattered, somebody else would prioritize them for me, Right? Somebody would read my mind, just know what I needed, redirect me back to myself, say something like, oh, you've been working so hard. Why don't you rest now? Why don't you take a nap? Why don't you take care of yourself? Which never happened. And so I was operating under this belief of, oh, I must not, my needs must not be that important. Nobody seems to be that concerned about my needs, so they must not matter.

9:02while not realizing that I needed to be the advocate for my needs. I needed to be the driving force and I needed to be the person that when I said I was going to do something for myself, I was the one who decided what was non-negotiable because what I was doing was saying, oh, I'll do that later. Or, oh, you know, it's not that big of a deal or, oh, oh, oh. Until that overwhelming crush of a feeling that I haven't done anything that I said I was going to do. I've gone completely unattended to, and everyone else is just taking me on my word. If I say it's okay, that's my job. That's my boundary to say what is okay and what's not.

9:44And it's not somebody else's job to say, Hey, Mara, you said you were going to do that thing for yourself. Now's the time, even though I was doing that for other people, right? That was another piece where I could reclaim some energy around. It's not my job to be my partner's boss. It's not my job to make sure that they're getting their self-care in or whatever it is that I'm micromanaging. My job is my care. My job is my needs. And whether or not I'm pushing them to the side is an inside job. So the book starts, Mara, with your partner sort of saying to you in this aha moment, like you need to ask for the things you need.

10:22Your partner is saying, I'm going to need these, you know, to get these dozen things done in the next two weeks. And I'm paraphrasing here. And you sort of like, well, like, what about me and my needs? And your partner is like, well, what about you and your needs? Did they show up, name them, own them? And that was when you realized that you needed to start doing this work. Do I have that right? Yeah. In that moment, I was so mad. And well, because what was happening was that I had never been pressed up against the edges of my life in such a way that I couldn't just deal with it. You know, up until that point before I had children, I had more corners to tend to myself in.

11:01Then all of a sudden I had this five week old baby. I had a really long and challenging birth that I was healing from and a whole host of postpartum mood stuff going on. And I couldn't even figure out what to ask for. It was that overwhelming feeling of, I'm so snowed in. I don't even know what I need. I don't even have time to figure out what I need. I need you to help me. And my partner saying to me that, you know, this is, you're always saying it's fine. Obviously, it's not fine. So, you know, what do you want? What do you need? And for me, the realization that I had been expecting and anticipating that somebody else would do for me, what I was unable or unwilling to do for myself was a tough pill to swallow, but was medicine that I needed to come into right relationship with myself and to change the way that I was showing up.

12:05And this was uncomfortable. I mean, that conversation was great. But I will say that subsequent conversations with my partner around me asking for what I needed haven't gone as well. Because, you know, turns out, they were really benefiting from me doing all of the things all of the time. And once I got to the understanding of, oh, this isn't great for me. And also not all of these things are my job or my responsibility. So here you go. Here's your stuff back. It was That time is so necessary. And when we come into right relationship with ourselves and take responsibility for our needs, people can trust us.

12:44Because when we say yes, we mean yes. You know, when I say I have the capacity and interest to do that, I'm definitely following through. And before when I was operating in that people pleasing way, I was saying yes all the time. And I mostly came through, but at my own expense, and then ultimately would burn out. and it was this rollercoaster ride. Yeah, we're talking to Mara Glatzel. She is the author of the new book, Needy. We'll have much more about this when we come back. Quince has totally become my go-to. It's that in-between weather right now in New York City. And I just got Quince's shorter length trench coat, cotton, a little bit of stretch.

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16:09But my family also loves the Whisker app that works with the litter robot. It tells my kids when cycles are complete and when the unit needs attention. Mom's not yelling at them anymore because the Whisker app is telling them on their phones where they always are anyway. So they can't claim they don't know when the litter robot needs their attention. The future is feline. Learn more about Whisker Litter Robot Models and starter kits today. Take an additional$50 off bundles with code FRESH. That's an additional$50 off bundles with code FRESH. Visit whisker.com slash fresh to shop now. I want to follow up on something you were saying at the end of the first segment, Mara, that this is something else that I circled that you wrote in the book.

16:55Moments that are uncomfortable or challenging as you start to show up for what you need and name it. moments that are uncomfortable or challenging doesn't mean that you're doing anything wrong. It isn't time to turn back, time to go back to the way things were. You need to partner with yourself in the discomfort. I loved this. Can you say more about that? Yeah, I'm sure I'm not alone in learning to read my discomfort as meaning I took a wrong turn somewhere. I need to go back. I need to read another book or listen to some podcast. I need to just, you know, reformulate how I'm doing things. And so I was stuck in this start, stop, start, stop pattern because change is uncomfortable.

17:38And when you're trying to approach your life in a different way, and you're trying to ask for what you need, when you're trying to receive what you've asked for, these are new skills and they are guaranteed to be uncomfortable. And a lot shifted for me when I was able to ask myself to get curious, what do I need when I'm uncomfortable? Instead of stopping and pulling back and starting again, to really meet myself in that discomfort and say, hey, this makes perfect sense. Doing something new or for the first time is uncomfortable. Doing something the first couple of times that you've been well conditioned not to do is very uncomfortable.

18:18What supports you when you're feeling uncomfortable? And maybe that's talking to a friend about it or writing in a journal or taking a shower or going to therapy. The multitude of supports are many, but giving yourself what you need in that space of discomfort instead of walking it back. Because I think for so many of us, we ask for what we need and it is so uncomfortable that we want to take it back. We wish we didn't say it. I remember the first time that I really did this. Again, my oldest was a baby and I had been getting up and doing all of the night, everything's. And there was just this one night where it was like, I had fed her and fed her and fed her.

19:01And she was just didn't want to go to sleep. And I was so tired. And I woke my partner up and said, she has everything that she needs. Can you just be with her for a little bit of time. I'm so tired. And they of course said, yes, not a problem. But I was lying there in that bed, perfectly awake, totally awake, the baby screaming, just running myself through this process. Why did I ask? Why did I bother them? Why couldn't I have done it? Why, why, why, why, why? Wanting to take it back. And I remember that moment so clearly, I had my hands kind of like stuck underneath my legs. So it was just willing myself to stay there and receive what I had asked for.

19:45Because that's surprising for us. I think we want things, but then when it comes to receiving them, receiving can be uncomfortable too. And that also takes practice. So there is this tandem piece of asking for what you need and then being in the space after, being with the discomfort of allowing somebody to do something to support you. What's the difference between something that you need and something that you want as you start to articulate? What are my needs? So I like to think about a need is something that you require in order to exist or thrive in your relationships, including your relationship with yourself.

20:28And something that you want is something that you desire in order to exist and thrive in your relationships. And it is easy to try to put these into a hierarchy and say, well, I have about this much time. So, you know, what's going to give me the biggest bang for my buck? That's the thing I got to go for. The biggest need fulfillment in these next 15 minutes, right? Yeah. But that actually what I find is that what is most satisfying is when those two pieces work in concert with one another, where the need is the what and the want is the how. Okay. So say what I need is breakfast, just for a really simple example, what I need is breakfast.

21:11And the want is what I want for breakfast very specifically. And you may want to, I don't know, have your favorite omelet from your favorite restaurant. And that might be inaccessible for you in that moment. but you could make some kind of facsimile omelet in your house. And that would be, you know, maybe a less glamorous version of what you want, but still in that same vein. And this is how they work together where the need is kind of, you know, I have a need to know that I matter to you in a relationship, right? To feel seen. And how I want specifically to feel seen is that when I'm talking to you, you put down your phone and you look up at me and make eye contact.

22:00And for somebody else that may not bother them quite so much, that bothers me deeply. So the want is the personalization part. We all have shared needs. We need to belong. We need to feel safe. We need rest. We need sustenance. We need love. We need celebration. but how the want hooks in is really delicious because the want is keyed into that. This is the particular flavor that I personally desire for this. And so you can play with that in really simple ways over the course of the day. You know, what do I need right now and how do I want it? And, you know, we may have wants that, you know, feel bigger or bolder than what we have time or energy resources for.

22:49We may have needs that feel the same way. This work is not about getting all of your needs met all of the time, but it is about allowing your needs to have a soft landing place inside of you and to acknowledge, hey, you know, I have a myriad of needs and I'm going to do my best. There are going to be seasons of your life. Look, I have, you know, as I said, a three and a six-year-old. There are needs that I have that are not going to be met right now because my house is chaotic and it's full and I have a puppy and there's all of these different things going on that won't, the circumstances won't be the same in four or five years.

23:28So not all of our needs are accessible, but I think we may have this habit of shutting ourselves down or self-censoring or judging our needs as they arise because they're inconvenient. And we can do such beautiful healing work in our relationship with ourselves to even put things into context and say, hey, yeah, I have a need for going away with my spouse for a week to reconnect and, you know, have an experience and adventure that is not going to happen right now. So what is possible within the context of my life right now? How can I have, you know, maybe thinking about it on a dial, a smaller portion that's still in that same vein of what I'm desiring?

24:10So Mara, you have a quiz on your website. We'll put the link in the show notes for this because I took the quiz. If you're sort of, I know I have needs, but I need more sleep. Like besides that, I'm not sure what they are. So you take this quiz. It's very fun to walk through. And it gave back to me that I needed sustenance. And there's, I think there's safety, there's connection, there's several different answers you can get. Is this like a love language? Like I'm always going to be the kind of person that will probably need sustenance. And by the way, when I took this quiz and I looked at this, like, oh, this resonates.

24:41This is definitely a path I could walk down and learn a lot about myself. Am I a sustenance kind of person? Or is it again, like this season of my life is sustenance. And then five years from now, I could be a person who really needs to explore my need for connection. Does it kind of change? Our needs do change over the course of our lives. And also, some things remain the same. You know, I think that aspects of our needs are more up depending on where we are and what's on our plate. But for me personally, sustenance is a core need of mine. 99 % of my problems can be solved by having stable blood sugar.

25:18That is a fact that I've learned about myself. And that remains true over the course of my life. I am hypersensitive to swings in my blood sugar. And that makes, you know, my relationships are going off kilter, my moods all over the place. Now my work is affected. Now my regulation with my kids is affected, right? So there is this thread for me that if there's only one thing I can pay attention to, it's how and when I'm feeding myself. And I can know that by and large, by just doing that one thing, I am taking care of myself in a multitude of ways. For some people, it's a high sleep need. For other people who are really extroverted, It's a feeling of connection.

26:02And that doesn't mean that we don't all have all of these needs because we do. But there may be needs that are overwhelmingly present for us just based on our, you know, unique physiology and lived experience up until now that really direct us towards a certain part of our lives and tell us, hey, you know, you got to keep an eye on this. Things fall apart if I don't get enough rest. if I only do one thing for myself, getting as much rest as possible is going to have the biggest impact all in, which can be nice to know because we're spread thin and we want to know where to start. We want to know where to get the most bang for our buck.

26:45And that's human. We're talking to Mara Glatzel. She is the author of Needy and we'll be right back. It's way more fun to plan a summer vacation when you know exactly how you're going to afford it. That's why Margaret and I both love Monarch Core. Monarch is the personal finance app that tracks everything, accounts, investments, savings goals, and spending. Right now, you can get your first year of Monarch Core for half off, just$50 with the promo code FRESH. Monarch Core takes the mental load of your finances way down. When I log into the Monarch Core app, all the info is there, right at my fingertips.

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