Welcome to clear the clutter. My name is Margaret and this podcast is where I give you practical and spiritual advice to get your time back so you can finally spend it how you really want. Hey loves, welcome to Clear the Clutter podcast, where I teach you mindset shifts in under an hour today. Today we’re going to talk about episode number 77, permission to rest and receive. And if you’ve listened to any of my episodes in the past, I’ll have tons of examples for us to dive into. So before we go into today’s episode, I want to talk about today’s sponsor, which is me. 

If you want to dive deeper into any of the resources I mentioned in today’s episode, like journal prompts, or if you want to check out any of the courses I’m always talking about, go to Margaret Stevens co shop or click the link in the show notes and you’ll get everything in one clean spot. And you don’t have to search the interwebs or type in all these random things. Everything is there, clean and easy for you, especially the archives. So, margaretstevens.co/shop. So let’s get into today’s episode. So I want to specifically talk about resting and receiving. Now, if you’ve listened to any of my previous episodes, this one’s a little bit more related to my Overcoming Overwhelm series. So if any of you have followed me for the last year or so, you knew that I went through a pretty severe burnout session. 

So my burnout session was so bad that for about four months, all I had the energy to do was get up, go to work, take care of my babies, pay the bills that were already automated and putts around the house. And that was it. I had no energy for the podcast, I had no energy for courses, I had no energy for learning. I did a lot of Escapism type things, so I read a ton of books, but not from a good place, like a bad mental place. It was really rough. I was so burnt out, I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I have a whole course and series dedicated to how do you overcome that? 

Because I made a promise to myself that as I was overcoming and working through the burnout and working through the crying and the emotion and all the weight that was on me, that I would again try my best to document it as I learned the next step in real time. So then that way I could go ahead and help. I could help the next person that was going through that overwhelming of an emotion and overwhelming of a time. Today’s episode is almost like a precursor to that. So this is I would call it the canary in the coal mine type of episode where you are starting to have these little moments that feel like friction. So you know me and I love friction. I love identifying it so that we can go ahead and get rid of it, right? 

There’s a reason why this podcast episode and this podcast in general is called Clear the Clutter. So I love to get rid of friction, and I always look for those little canary in the coal mines. And this week was a legitimate canary in the coal mine. This was a really shitty week. I had someone that did me dirty. Like, full on did me dirty. Like, I can’t believe this shit really happened. Are you mother trucking kidding me? Did me dirty. And it took a hot minute, or as I love to call it took a country hot minute for me to go ahead and process it. But because I have a lot of the tools in place from my burnout phase of life, I can shift through that a lot faster. 

So I specifically wanted to record this shift in pretty much real time just because there’s all these little teeny tiny canary in the coal mine moments or little shifts that you can implement. Like, you can implement them before the episode is done so that you can get really good results really quickly. Instead of trying to recreate the wheel and talk about this six months from now where maybe those little itty bitty things that would have definitely helped you achieve space and freedom and relaxation faster, I would have forgotten some of them, right? So let’s talk about what someone did and how they did me dirty. 

I had someone this week do me real dirty, and even though it is not the time and place to talk about it now, I know that I will be able to take that story and make millions off of it. So that’s kind of like the consolation prize, as they call it. Like, yeah, you screwed me now, but ha. And here’s the thing, right? You may be thinking well, obviously you’re probably thinking, like, what happened? I can’t tell you right now, I would love to. Oh, trust me, I would love to tell you right now, but right now is not the appropriate time. I promise you, as soon as it’s an appropriate time, I will happily tell that story. I promise I will definitely happily tell that story. But in the moment right now, it’s not appropriate. So person X did me dirty. 

I went through a shock phase of, I can’t believe that mother trucker did that. Okay, cool. How are we going to shive it? How are we going to shift, pivot, move on all those things, right? How are we going to shive it? So with that being said, I had all of these intense emotions, and the reason why I had such intense emotions and such an intense reaction to it was because, unfortunately, the most appropriate thing to do in that scenario, in that environment at that time was to sit there and take it. And we all know how much we love to just sit there and have to eat shit. And here’s the thing, right? Like, I have been very good my entire life of putting myself in scenarios that I don’t have to eat shit, I don’t have to take it. 

I consciously, consistently put myself in an environment where I’m able to express myself at least or I’m able to have a conversation. I’m not so frustrated, so angry, so backed into a corner that my first instinct is to retaliate. So the fact that I had to sit there and eat it and take it and say in my head, are you mother trucking kidding me? Was extremely tough. It was so overwhelming. I was like, vibrating with frustration, right? And so I had to get the energy out of me. And so this is why I wanted to talk about it in real time. One of the things I noticed which I was not super conscious of in the past, here’s another canary in the coal mine for you. 

One thing I was noticing was this very easily could have turned from a shitty week into a super shitty month. I very easily could have let this thing that happened, it could have overwhelmed me. It could have changed my mindset. It could have made me a little bit more bitter. It could have made me definitely way more angrier. I could have fed into it over and over in my head. I could have told the same story of how I should have done this differently and done that differently and who do they think they are and why do they think they can treat me this way? I could have said all of those stories in my head, and I could have had that on repeat, right? I didn’t. 

I caught it in fast enough of a time where I gave myself time to rest and rest, receive the answers that I needed on how to handle this very frustrating moment. And there’s another couple of little things that I started to notice, right? So I was trying to process the emotion I was trying to force myself to process the emotion pretty fast because I wasn’t going to sit around the house and clean the house. That just didn’t feel like it was going to work. I needed a happy moment. I needed a dopamine rush, right? So what did I end up doing? I ended up leaning into some bad habits I used to do in the past, and I went shopping. Now, I didn’t buy anything this time, but it’s pretty hard to go shopping in a county where there’s more cows than people. 

So I had to work at it. Now, lately, probably maybe it’s been almost a year, we got a new Marshalls because our town is that small. We didn’t even have something like that. We had a bells technically, but we have a new Marshalls now. And I was starting to slip into some old habits, which, again, was a conscious canary in the coal mine for me. So I walked around Tractor Supply, and I looked at baby chickens, and thank God there was no baby geese. Otherwise, I would have come home with a flock of baby geese. But I walked around, and I looked at baby chickens. I walked around Tractor Supply, seeing and thinking of all the things I could buy. I walked around Marshall’s, and I thought of all the things I could buy.

Thank God my town shuts down pretty early, because after that, I needed to get something for the house. And I was getting ready to walk around Aldi’s, and thank God Aldi’s had closed. And when they had closed, I kind of snapped out of it, and I’m like, oh, my God. I’m using this as an excuse to avoid my emotions. So another thing I’ve done in the past, which is a canary in the cold mine, possibly for you, is you could either stress eat or stress bake. So sometimes at work, I would stress eat in environments like this, but I would stress bake a lot. Like, I have had the most craziest cravings to make cinnamon rolls from scratch. 

I can’t even tell you the last time I’ve made cinnamon rolls, let alone, oh, no, maggie doesn’t want to just go to the store and buy the thing, put it in a tub, and move on. No, she wants to figure out how to make it from scratch, starting with milk at 115 degrees and softened butter. Like I went that far down the rabbit hole. So I caught myself there. I’m like, okay, no, that’s not good. If I am looking for all of these little dopamine rushes, then I have to figure out how to process this emotion. So I went down another dopamine rush, which was I doom Scrolled, Instagram, then Facebook, then Pinterest, then TikTok, and after I kept telling Holly and Neiman, hold on, mommy’s almost done watching a video. I was like, whoop, there I go again. 

So, those were, like, the three specific canary in the coal mines. That, for me, are a conscious indicator that I am very overwhelmed, and I need to figure out how to get this out of my system. So you might relate to some of them. You might relate to none of them, but I want you to consciously look for an area in your life where you are escaping, like hard escaping, and there’s differences, right? Like, there’s good escaping, where you’re like, oh, my God. At least for me, oh, my God. This book is amazing. I love it. The author is just so captivating. I’m obsessed with the characters. I just can’t wait to see what happens next. So I’m not talking about avoiding reality in a positive manner. I’m talking about when you’re doing it to avoid emotion. 

So look for your triggers would be my first recommendation. Look for the specific things that you do, which, again, mine is shopping, baking, or multiple social media accounts back to back look for your triggers that you can kind of use as a way to pull yourself out of the dip. Now, the reason again why I wanted to share this in real time is I did an exercise that was very different. I intentionally last night gave myself permission to rest. I said, you know what? What I need right now is not to figure out how to now make cookies from scratch. Because unfortunately, I do know how to do that. I have a collection of 1819 cookbooks to how to make cookies from scratch with every possible alternative. If you have no eggs, milk, butter, whatever, right? 

So I didn’t need to make cookies from scratch. I didn’t need to go ahead and buy more stuff on the Googles, oh, my God, thank God I didn’t go onto Amazon. I didn’t need to go ahead and doom scroll all social media accounts that I’m subscribed. Like, I didn’t need to do any of that. What I really needed to do was stop and just let everything kind of settle out of my body is how it felt. So Ben had made a comment of like, oh, let’s just lay down and watch TV together and snuggle. I’m like, you know what? That is the perfect thing to do. So I put my phone down. I think I put it in, like, the kitchen or something like that. I consciously put my phone far away from me, and we laid down and we watched, like, Antique Roadshow. 

And then after that, we watched a new TV series that we’re watching. And I intentionally, as were watching these TV shows, I told my brain, we’re not going to think about the scenario that did me dirty. We’re not going to do any of that. Your job is to rest. And I literally was chanting in my head as every time I would kind of start to slip a little bit, I was like, Nope. I give myself permission to rest. I give myself permission to rest. I give myself permission to rest. It is okay to rest. It is okay. There is nothing to feel guilty about. There’s nothing wrong about resting. That doesn’t mean you’re lazy. That doesn’t mean you won’t get things done. That doesn’t mean that you’ll be resting forever and that you’re this horrible person. Right now. 

The most intentionally conscious thing you can do is to rest. The faster you rest, the faster you’ll recover, the faster you can move on with a clear, level head versus thinking all hot and wanting to put your ghetto hoops on and just snap your gum and, I don’t know, alter ego gangster Margaret wants to come out, right? Like the head bobble with the ghetto hoops wants to come out. So that is not what we want. That is not the time or place for let’s pause let’s rest. Let’s give ourselves permission to rest and let’s go ahead and move through this. So what happened? Well, what happened was my adrenaline of going through the emotion of the did me dirty. It finally got to leave my body. I acknowledged that someone did me dirty. 

I acknowledged that in that moment in time, I felt trapped and that I had no other choice and I had to take it. And I also acknowledged that someday down the road, I’ll be able to tell my story, and it’ll make me millions. And it’ll make me millions because I’ll be able to teach other people how to deal with that emotion in that time and not have it traumatize them, right? Because that’s the thing. You can have someone that does your dirty and you don’t even care. God knows people have done that to me in the past, and I’m like, I can’t even remember. They’re so insignificant that I can’t even remember it. But when it’s something that is this shocking or this intense or this strong of an emotion, it can really screw you up if you let it. 

It’s very slippery of a slope. So I was very conscious of that as I was sitting and I was resting, and I was like, you know what? Right now, I’m going to give myself permission to rest and I’m going to pivot. So I’m going to solve the problem. The problem that I needed to solve was I didn’t feel valued. I was like, okay, at the end of the day, the reason why I’m so upset of why person X did me dirty is because I do not feel valued. I do not feel like they care. Doesn’t matter all of the backstory. It doesn’t matter, any of it. They, with that action, told me how much they cared about me. And I clearly have an imbalanced relationship. I care more about them than they do me. 

And mind you, if any of you are thinking, this is between me and Ben, it is like, it is not at all. It is an unrelated party. So marriage is perfectly, amazingly fine. So, yeah, just putting that out there. But yeah, I have an imbalanced relationship with this scenario, and I care way too much, because if I didn’t, then the did me dirty would have not affected me so bad, right? So I acknowledged I didn’t feel valued. I didn’t feel seen, I didn’t feel heard. I didn’t feel appreciated. I was like, okay, so how can I give my brain instructions to go ahead and feel that, right? Because clearly that is extremely important to me, and I think it’s important to most of us, to be perfectly honest. 

Like, I’m sorry, who does not want to go ahead and feel seen, feel heard, feel valued in life? No one. Everyone wants that, right? You want to have the people in your life, the people that you are spending this tiny, precious time with on Earth. You want to feel that you matter, that you make a difference, that you’re appreciated. And most of the time, if you get that’s kind of good enough in most scenarios. So I was like, okay, well, clearly that is not happening in this environment, so that means I need to change it. So I actually started using some exercises. I talked about what was it? The underdog course. Very great course. It was like a 30 something dollars course that I had bought from Andrea. I actually used a lot of her exercises. This morning while I was getting ready. 

I was like, okay, wouldn’t it be fun if blank wouldn’t it be fun if blank wouldn’t it be fun if blank? And I did that intentionally because I wanted to not only give my brain something to chew on so that I could get onto the other side of that emotion, but I also wanted to give myself an intentional, clear path of how do we get out of this? And so I was thinking about that last night, and I used the words while I was getting know. Wouldn’t it be fun if I’m actually thinking Ben’s gonna probably be like, oh, my God, here we go again. Crazy Maggie’s back. 

But I used to love back in our old house to write phrases or mantras on our bathroom mirror because I figured while I’m brushing my teeth, I could be reading something intentional. So I think I might do that again. But thinking about it last night, I’m like, okay, well, how do I move on from this? How do I acknowledge the hurt, acknowledge the pain, acknowledge the imbalance in this relationship, and how do I move on? So by asking myself those questions, I was able to kind of let my body rest. And the other side of that was, okay, well, now what? And this is where you start to get a little creative. 

Wouldn’t it be fun if wouldn’t it be fun if so an example would be wouldn’t it be fun if I took this story and turned it into a teachable moment? Wouldn’t it be fun if I could get something out of this that could help someone else? Wouldn’t it be fun if and this is something I’m still playing with, but wouldn’t it be fun if this turns into a whole module in overcoming overwhelm? Now, I am intending to take off. I haven’t officially put it in yet, but I’m intending to take off a day next week so that I could sit down and do some more working on my podcast company. And on top of it, I have a shit ton of PTO. It’s got to get burned, right? Unused PTO does no one any good. 

So I was like, okay, what if I used this as not only just a teachable moment, not only as a podcast episode. But what if I use this to create a whole series in my Overcoming Overwhelm course and I have no clue. Again, I haven’t even gotten to the point of what I’m going to call that module yet, but maybe it’s going to be called how to Handle You Did Me Dirties. I don’t know. But there’s so much good that can come from this environment, from this scenario, from this shock to the system. I always do believe that we can take a crappy experience and we can learn, not learn something from it because we can always learn something, right? But we can learn something from it and we can now turn it into a positive experience that can help someone else. 

Because if it just sits there and dies with us, then it really affected us a lot more than what were even realizing or thinking. So I want to take this and I want to turn it into something good, not just a podcast episode. Because all of the things I have learned in that very short time frame between pretty much yesterday afternoon. Yeah, yesterday afternoon. Yeah, because it was Thursday. Okay, yesterday afternoon tonight has been a lot of shifts. A lot of, oh my God, I did this differently and I felt way better. Oh my God, I did this differently and I felt way better. So I feel like the most appropriate way to teach that is going to be a new module and over coming overwhelm. So if you would be interested in something like that. 

Again, not only learning how to handle the Did Me dirties, but also how to handle severe burnout. I even have a module in there specifically dealing with a family health cris because those are things I’ve had to go through. You should definitely check out the Overcoming Overwhelm course. Again, link is in the show notes if you don’t want to have to type everything out. I am one of the worst spellers in the world, I joke, so it’s just easier for me to have a link to click on versus trying to remember how to spell something. But the other thing too is if I do come out with that module, I’m going to up the price like 100%. There is no ifs, ands, or buts about it. 

So the perks of all of my content is that you get lifetime access and lifetime upgrades for free, regardless of the price you paid. So any of you that have bought the course now, just keep an eye out because I’ll send an email and I will make sure that you get the upgrades for free, for life. That’s part of my promise to you of intentional learning and growth forever. So I would definitely check out the course if that’s something that you’re interested in. So specifically I promised you something that you can go ahead and use today. So what I want you to do is I want you to do three different things, kind of like two and a half. I want you to do two and a half things. I want you to identify whether you write it down. You DM me. 

You tweet me. You clearly can reach me. A multitude of social media platforms. You contact me and tell me, what are your triggers? I feel like the first step is definitely identifying your triggers. If you can identify your trigger, then you can go ahead and make a plan from there. Right? So if you are like me and you’re stress shopping, okay, let’s identify that trigger. Once you start to identify that trigger, we need to second identify the emotion that you wish you would have gotten instead of the one you did get. So for me, I had someone do me dirty, and what I really wanted was to feel valued and appreciated. So it’s like, okay, my trigger was shopping. The emotion I wanted to feel was valued and appreciated. I didn’t feel that. 

So let me go ahead and do all these other random things so that I can try and wrap my brain around why I didn’t feel valued and appreciated. That’s step number two. Step number 2.5 is to go ahead and start shifting your mindset in a way that you can get those feelings. And I would prefer recommend lovingly browbeat you to sitting still and giving yourself a night off. And maybe if you need more than a night off, that’s okay. Right. The reason why I can shift through these things so fast is because I’ve done the work over and over again. And just like any other skill set, I don’t care what your skill set is. I mean, we talked about skill sets two episodes ago. 

Any skill set that you do, you’re going to be able to do it faster and faster, more efficiently, more easily, more graceful, less stressful every single time the more you practice. So what for me was able to happen in a night that might take you a week, it might take you a week and a half, it might take you a weekend. It might take you only a couple of hours. I don’t want you to set this expectation that if you only take one night off and you don’t feel magically better, that you failed. It’s the act of going through these two and a half steps. We’re just sticking with two and a half. It’s the act of going through those two and a half steps that will get you to feeling better. That is how you solve the problem. 

You identify your trigger. You go ahead and identify the emotion that you were hoping to feel instead of the one that actually did happen. And then you go ahead and rest, and you reconsider. How can you get that emotional need met instead? Intentionally. Right. And had Ben not been in a super snugly mood, I would have sat down. And I am famous for sitting in the tub for at least an hour and a half at a time. I wish I had a tub heater because I sit in there for so long. But I am intentional when I’m sitting in the tub. I’m sitting there and I’m thinking and I’m processing and I’m feeling. And that doesn’t always have to be that way, right? So if sitting in the tub isn’t your thing, I am constantly known. 

I mean, you guys see all my stuff on the socials. I love to walk around the back pasture with the dogs and the cows. I love to kind of clean and put things away. So whatever your way of moving through that emotion, as long as it’s not in a negative manner, as long as it’s not in a punishment style manner and it actually makes you feel better afterwards, that’s all I’m asking for. If you can get some snuggles out of it with whether it’s your animals or your friends or your loved ones, even better, right? Because you’re going to get that dopamine rush from the person that loves you and you’re also going to feel safe enough for your body to relax and go ahead and process all of those feelings that unfortunately got sent to you in a very broken way. 

So I want you to do those two and a half steps so then that way you can go from someone did me dirty to resting and receiving. And the reason why I talk about receiving, I really haven’t talked about receiving too much, but the receiving comes from the rest point of view. When you rest, you are allowing yourself to receive the grace, the feeling, the emotions, the needs that didn’t get met. You’re allowing yourself to receive that in a way that didn’t get received before. So whether it is you receiving it just from your own intentional emotions or maybe you journal it out, maybe you talk it out with a best friend or your family member or a loved one, but you receive that love because that’s what it always comes back to, right? 

We want to be valued and in a sense, valued is you want to be loved. So I want you to receive that emotion that you’re intentionally needing and then that way you can process it and you can move on. And if this was a really tough episode and you’re like, wait, I need more, then that is where I would definitely recommend you. I’m not going to do journal prompts for this episode. For me, it’s too big, right? It’s like a nugget off of oh, my God. Let’s use some baking terms. Okay? It is like this episode is a handful of chocolate chips when I intentionally made a 24 batch of chocolate chip cookies. Me handing you a couple of chocolate chips, yeah, cool. Would be fun and tasty. But you would rather have the batch. 

Of cookies, because who does not want a fresh batch of yummy, delicious chocolate chip cookies, right? So there’s no journal prompts for this one. It’s too big of a cookie patch to try and give you prompts. I want you to go ahead and check out the course. I want you to go ahead and dive into those two and a half specific steps. I want you to identify. Okay, so this is the half of the step that we keep talking about. Receiving, I want you to identify, because if you’re having a hard time receiving, I want you to identify what does receiving and what does rest look like for you. So if you’re struggling with step one, step two in half, I want you to identify why. 

Because if you can identify why, then we can go ahead and fix it and we can go from there. So with that being said, as always, I am incredibly grateful to every single one of you that listens to this podcast episode. I’ve been doing this on and off for years. It has taken a lot of courage, a lot of faith, a lot of personal getting out of my own way. You probably don’t even know this. I am an extreme introvert. I am a very obsessively, private person. So for me to get in front of a mic somewhat consistently over the past couple of years, to go ahead and share these mindset shifts for you, has been such a growth opportunity for me. And I am incredibly grateful that you have been along with the journey every single step. 

I don’t care if you’ve been with me from episode one. I don’t care if this is the first time you’re listening to me and now you’re intrigued and you’re going to dive back into the archives. I’m just incredibly grateful to be here to serve you. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. It expands so much every time I see more people subscribe, more people sign up for the newsletter, more people check out my courses. I just really want to help. And unfortunately, I can’t have you all come to a counter and talk to you individually. So again, I will always encourage you to please reach out to me. Whatever method you feel the most comfortable with, reach out to me. Email is appropriate too. I do love me a good old email if you’re not on any of the socials. 

But yeah, I am here to help you. I’m here to support you. I’m here to have you have these mindset shifts and make the most of our time here on Earth. Whether it’s monetizing our skills, whether it is busting through the blocks around money and mindset, whether it is feeling seen and valued, whether it’s a combination of a bunch of things that I haven’t even talked about yet. I’m just here to help you, and I’m here to serve. And I’m just so grateful I can’t say thank you enough. So before I keep rambling on, thank you for listening today’s episode. I’d love to hear how you’re using this little nugget in your day. You’re more than welcome and encouraged to tag me on all the socials. 

And I would love that if you shared it with a friend, because that is one of the highest forms of flattery and just gratitude is to share my episodes with a friend. I will talk to you later. Bye. Have a burning question for me? Want that link I was talking about? Get access to all the resources and links that were mentioned in this episode and others over at Margaretsevens.co. And if you haven’t, don’t forget to sign up for my VIP list where I share special bonuses, prelaunch coupon codes and advice I don’t share anywhere else. Thanks for listening.