• 10 months ago
Hey, crazy parents of the MomCave universe! Tonight, we've snagged the superhero of sanity herself, Dr. Whitney Casares, to unravel the mysteries of "Doing it ALL." Yes, folks, she's the wizard who knows how to balance parenting, work, and probably a secret side hustle as a ninja. If you've ever wondered how to manage the chaos without losing your mind, stick around. We're about to dive into the magical world of parenting with Dr. Whitney Casares and her soon-to-be legendary book. Buckle up, because this is MomCave LIVE, where we tackle the absurdity of parenthood one laugh at a time!


Find Dr. Whitney on:

Instagram: http://instagram.com/modernmommydoc

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitneycasares/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/modernmommydoc

Modern Mommy Doc Website: https://modernmommydoc.com/

Buy Doing It All: https://www.modernmommydoc.com/doing-it-all

Join our email list for exclusive content, new videos, giveaways, and free nannies. (Okay, that part's a lie...): http://eepurl.com/SJxVj

Find MomCave in all the places!

⚡️Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MomCaveTV

us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MomCaveTV

Pin with Us: http://www.pinterest.com/MomCaveTV

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/momcavetv

Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@momcavetv

Our blog/giveaways: http://www.MomCaveTV.com

Find the MomCaveTV App on: Amazon Fire - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BH3JHQZS Apple TV - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/momcave/id6443647663

Android TV: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=quickcast.tv.mom_cave

Roku - https://channelstore.roku.com/details/6f6be4b40df791dc95eb1ab5ee7b32d8

Binge Networks: https://trybinge.tv/programs/momcave?category_id=179492

Airy TV: https://live.airy.tv/Airy_TV_3/39_MomCaveTV

Read the transcript below:

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo 0:14

Welcome to MomCave LIVE, where we may have lost our minds. But we have not lost our sense of humor. And we're live tonight with a very fun guest. I'm going to bring her on. Tada. Welcome Dr. Witt. All right.



Dr Whitney Casares 0:30

Thank you so much.



Jennifer Weedon Palazzo 0:32

You're very welcome. When I saw the title of your book that's about to come out, I thought that we have to have you to come on right away, because I need you, we need you. The title is doing, doing it all doing it all: Stop over functioning and become the mom and the person that you are meant to be. So, I think a lot of us can identify with this over the over functioning, the overwhelm..

Read More at: https://www.momcavetv.com/doing-it-all-overcome-over-functioning-dr-whitney-casares-momcave-live/

Category

😹
Fun
Transcript
00:00 (phone ringing)
00:00 - Mommy! - Honey, hurry!
00:02 (upbeat music)
00:07 (phone ringing)
00:14 - Welcome to MomCave Live,
00:16 where we may have lost our minds,
00:17 but we have not lost our sense of humor.
00:19 And we're live tonight with a very fun guest.
00:22 I'm gonna bring her on.
00:23 Ta-da!
00:26 Welcome, Dr. Witt.
00:27 - Sorry.
00:28 (laughing)
00:30 Thank you so much.
00:32 - You are very welcome.
00:34 When I saw the title of your book that's about to come out,
00:37 I thought that we have to have you to come on right away
00:40 because I need you, we need you.
00:42 (laughing)
00:45 The title is "Doing It All, Stop Overfunctioning
00:50 and Become the Mom and the Person that You Are Meant to Be."
00:55 So I think a lot of us can identify with this,
00:59 this over, the over-functioning, the overwhelm.
01:01 And so I thought we could just talk
01:02 about that a little tonight.
01:04 Winnie, just tell me a little bit of what started,
01:08 what got you into this idea of writing this book
01:10 and how do you know?
01:11 - Yeah, exactly.
01:13 Okay, so first of all, the reason that I wrote the book,
01:17 it's not that I was born like the most skilled
01:22 at being able to juggle all the things
01:24 and not be stressed out as a mom.
01:26 It's because I kind of earned my stripes the hard way.
01:29 So I'm actually trained as a pediatrician,
01:33 went to Stanford, went to Berkeley
01:35 and got my public health degree
01:37 in maternal and child health.
01:38 So book-wise, I kind of knew all the answers
01:42 as to what parents should be doing and moms specifically
01:46 to be able to really take care of their kids
01:49 the best possible.
01:50 And also what things really influence in a family,
01:53 how kids don't do well.
01:55 But when I had my own daughter, my first daughter,
01:58 it became much more real.
02:00 My oldest daughter has autism.
02:01 She's 10 years old now.
02:03 And so that push and pull of kind of trying to do work
02:06 as hard as possible, trying to do life as hard as possible,
02:09 trying to be a good mom, it just, nothing was by the book.
02:12 And I had to kind of re-imagine what life was.
02:15 And really, I think the main thing is,
02:17 and the crux of the book is, reprioritize
02:20 like what matters the most to me
02:22 and what matters the most to me as a parent
02:26 in terms of raising kids that will succeed in life.
02:29 And by succeed, I do not mean Harvard.
02:32 I mean succeed in terms of like be the type of person
02:35 people wanna be around, like themselves,
02:37 be able to pay for their own therapy, all that good stuff.
02:41 So yeah, so the book was born out of all of these challenges
02:46 and journeys that I went through as myself, as a mom,
02:50 but then also what I saw all these moms
02:53 in my clinical practice struggling with too.
02:56 And so I developed this foundational kind of framework
02:59 that now I use with moms all across the nation
03:03 that helps them really to figure out what matters most
03:06 and how do I spend more time doing that stuff
03:08 and less time and energy on all the other stuff
03:11 that doesn't matter in life.
03:13 - Yeah, because it feels like all those other things
03:15 take up so much time.
03:18 But yet if we stop over-functioning and doing it all,
03:23 who else is going to do it, right?
03:24 That's how we feel.
03:25 How do you answer that?
03:26 Who else is gonna do it?
03:28 - Yeah, totally.
03:29 Well, okay, to me, there's actually four things
03:32 that you can do with all the stuff
03:34 that comes at you as a mom, okay?
03:37 Number one is-
03:38 - I'm gonna write it down.
03:39 - You're gonna write it down?
03:39 Yes, get some notes, get some notes.
03:41 (laughing)
03:42 - Come on.
03:44 Okay, so number one is you can do it
03:48 with more efficiency or effectiveness.
03:51 So this is like as a pediatrician,
03:54 I have to write notes and I have to write emails, right?
03:57 So how can I do that without taking up
04:02 as much time as I need to?
04:03 How do I create systems?
04:04 How do I create algorithms?
04:05 How do I create templates for things, right?
04:07 So, and that's what a lot of people,
04:09 when they talk about getting more stuff done on your list,
04:12 that's where they focus.
04:13 The problem is those things are great,
04:16 but if you don't have other strategies as well,
04:18 you're just gonna get everything done faster and easier.
04:21 And then if you're over-functioning,
04:23 you're just gonna add more stuff to your list
04:25 and do it faster and easier and have even more resentment.
04:28 Yeah.
04:31 - Totally.
04:31 I identify with this statement.
04:34 (laughing)
04:36 Yeah, so if you have any questions or comments
04:39 about what Dr. Wendy is talking about,
04:42 please just pop in the comments 'cause we're watching them
04:44 and she will answer your questions.
04:47 That's a really good point you made just there,
04:50 because for me and for a lot of my friends that are moms,
04:54 it's like, you feel like you're always behind.
04:56 So if you catch up a little on something,
04:59 then you're like,
05:00 but I have all these other things I'm behind on.
05:01 It doesn't mean catch up and now I'm caught up
05:03 and I get to relax a little.
05:05 It means do more things.
05:07 - Yeah, exactly.
05:10 And sometimes when you're in the rhythm
05:12 of doing more things all the time,
05:15 constantly in go, go, go mode as a mom,
05:18 it actually starts to feel really bad
05:20 when you're not doing anything.
05:22 So I don't know if you've noticed it.
05:23 I definitely see this as a mom, but I see it in myself,
05:26 that when there's dead space,
05:28 then you figure out even more stuff to do.
05:31 - Right.
05:32 Yeah.
05:33 And I'm sure that some of that has to do with sitting
05:36 and just being with our emotions
05:38 or whatever's going on in life.
05:39 You don't have the distraction of the busyness.
05:43 But for me, I'm also very visually stimulated.
05:46 So if I sit down on the sofa in the middle of my house,
05:49 my eyes will take in 500 things that need to be done.
05:54 It's just really, really hard to relax.
05:59 What kind of ways have you helped moms learn to relax?
06:02 - Yeah.
06:04 So I actually think your point about being in your house
06:08 is totally valid for so many moms.
06:13 So if you need to get out of your house
06:15 to be able to get more done,
06:17 like I do so much better work at a coffee shop.
06:20 If I'm writing, for example,
06:22 I really cannot do that very effectively at my house
06:24 unless I'm editing something I've already written.
06:27 If I'm trying to be creative,
06:28 I have to do it not at my home.
06:31 So I'll go someplace where I'm less distracted.
06:33 (indistinct)
06:36 - Hi, Eric.
06:37 - Yeah, that's my phone ring.
06:39 So someone upstairs will get it.
06:42 - Yeah, exactly.
06:44 So that's one tip.
06:45 The other thing is to think about
06:48 what in your actual home environment,
06:50 what stuff do you need to take away
06:53 to make it so that you have less that you need to focus on?
06:56 Like what do you need to declutter?
06:58 So actually that's one of the other strategies
07:01 you can use in your life
07:02 is to physically declutter your space
07:06 and to declutter your calendar.
07:08 So sometimes as moms, we'll put stuff on our calendar,
07:11 like it's even like a nail appointment
07:13 or a hair appointment or whatever,
07:15 like in the name of kind of like self-care or doing stuff,
07:18 or we'll join the volunteer PTA thing
07:22 because we wanna make sure that we're contributing.
07:24 And some of that stuff is great if it's like on your heart,
07:27 you care so deeply about the PTA.
07:30 But if you don't, it's okay to take a look
07:32 at your physical space and at your calendar
07:35 and say, what are these things do I have here out of guilt
07:39 or because I feel bad to get rid of it,
07:42 like, or I feel obligated,
07:43 maybe someone else is telling me I should do it.
07:46 So that can be a way to really focus in
07:49 and to have less of that distraction
07:51 and be able to focus and relax.
07:53 And then the third thing I would say is
07:55 practice makes perfect.
07:57 So if you're someone who's used to running
07:59 at really high gear all the time,
08:01 sometimes what you have to do
08:03 to get yourself into the rhythm of this,
08:04 and this was true for me,
08:05 like during the holiday break, for example,
08:07 I came up a really busy season and then I had to relax,
08:10 that I would say like,
08:11 okay, I'm just gonna sit here for 30 seconds.
08:14 I'm gonna close my eyes for 30 seconds
08:16 or be quiet with myself for 30 seconds
08:18 'cause that's all I can handle.
08:20 And then next time I'll make it a minute,
08:23 next time two minutes, three minutes.
08:25 So don't be afraid if what you really need is like,
08:28 all I'm gonna do is take five breaths in my car
08:31 before I go into my house.
08:33 That is a great way to practice kind of slowing down
08:36 and being able to relax more
08:38 and be able to be more focused.
08:40 - Yeah, yeah.
08:41 And we often feel guilty when we do that.
08:43 Like, you know,
08:44 we don't deserve to take five breaths in the car.
08:46 We have to get out and get those groceries right away.
08:49 So that's a hard thing.
08:51 - Yeah, absolutely.
08:53 And that's actually the third thing, right?
08:56 So a lot of times when we feel guilty
08:58 for taking some extra time for ourselves,
09:01 even five minutes, I mean,
09:02 think about, totally right,
09:04 that's a totally common statement that I hear too.
09:06 And also when you think about that logically,
09:08 that's ridiculous.
09:09 If our kids said, if our partner said,
09:12 I can't take like five minutes to myself to relax,
09:16 you'd be like, humans cannot run
09:18 without taking five minutes to relax, right?
09:20 So we don't need to be the super moms.
09:22 But part of that strategy is about setting boundaries.
09:27 And one of the most important boundaries to me
09:30 and the hardest for people, I think,
09:32 to kind of take on as moms and to hold is a self boundary.
09:37 A self boundary that's healthy
09:39 means you're not taking the temperature of other people
09:43 more than you're taking your own temperature.
09:45 You're not thinking about other people's needs
09:48 even more than you're thinking of your own.
09:50 So being able to kind of put yourself
09:52 on an even playing field with everybody else's needs
09:55 to say like, yes, my kids need to eat,
09:57 but also if I don't eat something right now,
09:59 I'm gonna faint or I'm gonna be angry
10:01 or I'm gonna blow up on everybody, you know.
10:04 - Hangry mama is not good.
10:06 - Right, exactly.
10:08 'Cause it always comes out somewhere.
10:10 Like that's the thing I'm always reminding moms
10:13 is that you can deprive yourself forever and ever and ever.
10:18 And I totally understand that.
10:20 And there's so many things in society that make it
10:23 so that we're conditioned to do that
10:25 and that we're in that place.
10:27 But in the end, it's gonna come out somewhere.
10:29 It's gonna come out in you being more angry.
10:32 It's gonna come out in a migraine.
10:34 It's gonna come out in depression and anxiety.
10:37 Like there's that book, you know, "The Body Remembers."
10:40 It's like the body keeps score.
10:42 It gets stored either emotionally or physically.
10:46 And then it usually comes out, unfortunately,
10:48 at like the worst possible time.
10:49 You know, you break down
10:50 and you can't go to an important meeting
10:52 or can't go to your kids' performance or whatever.
10:55 - Yeah, yeah.
10:56 I've had a few of those moments actually today.
10:59 - Yeah. (laughs)
11:00 - Yeah, we can fast right now.
11:02 Yeah, so why do you think,
11:04 we don't have to get too deep into this,
11:06 but I'm just curious.
11:07 Why do you think that moms have this problem,
11:10 it seems like, more than dads?
11:12 - Yeah, okay.
11:14 So I think there's a couple of reasons.
11:16 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:17 I think there's a couple of reasons.
11:18 One, think about the fact that for generations,
11:22 I mean like centuries, eons,
11:25 that women have been carrying the load of childcare.
11:28 They have been subservient to men.
11:30 They haven't been on the same playing field.
11:32 So we have so much tradition of inequity for moms,
11:37 where we've been taught basically,
11:39 I'm not supposed to take up as much space as anybody else.
11:42 My job is to be a caregiver and a servant.
11:45 So that's number one.
11:47 Number two is this idea that we're taught to be pleasing
11:52 as little girls,
11:54 that like a good girl is always polite,
11:56 that we follow directions,
11:58 that we're always kind of helping everybody else,
12:00 that we don't like stick up too much.
12:02 And unfortunately,
12:04 that means that once we get into relationships
12:06 with men in particular,
12:08 it makes it hard for us sometimes to stand our ground
12:12 and to say, listen, it deserves to be equal.
12:15 Next thing is, women have not been in the workplace
12:18 that long in the same capacity
12:20 that they have recently been in.
12:21 So we're in a totally new era where women are
12:26 in CEO positions, in the C-suite,
12:28 they're running their businesses like I am.
12:31 And just like one generation ago,
12:34 my in-laws, my parents,
12:35 my dad wasn't changing diapers
12:37 in the same way that my husband is,
12:38 and so it was when my kids were little.
12:40 And so you have to remember,
12:42 I think that these things take time
12:44 and that they take accountability.
12:45 So thank goodness,
12:47 there's so much more new information that's come out
12:50 about the mental load that women are starting to say like,
12:52 hey, this isn't fair.
12:54 I'm doing work at work and also at home,
12:57 but just being aware of that
12:59 and having our heart aware of it,
13:01 isn't gonna solve the problem.
13:03 It has to be that we're constantly talking about it,
13:06 that when we're with other couples
13:08 that we're talking about,
13:09 like, okay, how do you guys share things?
13:11 Oh, so-and-so takes the kids to school.
13:13 Oh, do you do that?
13:14 I mean, I think there's that.
13:16 And then in my household, honestly,
13:18 we've invested in couple therapy.
13:20 I mean, just to try to kind of get at reality checking,
13:25 who's doing what and why,
13:27 and how it makes everybody feel
13:30 when the woman is the one in the household
13:33 who's taking on every single thing and feeling resentful.
13:36 Hard to be like in a couple's like romantic relationship
13:40 when you're feeling kind of
13:41 like you're getting there really short into the stick.
13:43 - Definitely, it's very hard to be romantic
13:46 if you feel resentful.
13:47 Sometimes I realized that it feels like
13:51 we're doing it all sometimes.
13:53 And it helps me to think a little bit about
13:56 the things that actually my partner is doing
13:59 that I don't even think about.
14:00 - Yeah.
14:01 - I could care less whether the oil in the car gets changed.
14:05 And I know that's like stereotypical,
14:07 but that's like his department and he does that.
14:09 And I have to sometimes remind myself that when I'm mad
14:12 because I'm the one that always does the laundry
14:13 or whatever, right?
14:14 - Yeah.
14:15 - Kind of reminding myself too that it's,
14:18 in a way I think we're feeling a lot overloaded
14:23 and it's sort of that all or nothing thinking of like,
14:26 we just make it so big, you know?
14:29 - Yeah, totally.
14:30 So that's the fourth strategy really
14:33 is like sharing the load with other people.
14:34 The other thing that I would say is,
14:37 your partner is not the end all be all
14:39 for every single thing.
14:40 Yes, you live in a household with your partner,
14:41 but if you have kids, and they're old enough,
14:44 I mean, even kids, pediatrician hat on,
14:46 even kids at this age too can do chores, right?
14:48 So getting your kids to help, that really is great.
14:52 If you have a neighbor that you can swap tasks with,
14:57 I'm not trying to let men on the hook,
14:59 but I am saying like,
15:01 if you're in a relationship with a man,
15:03 it might not be that he's able to meet all your needs
15:05 or that's gonna happen overnight.
15:07 So what can you do in the meantime?
15:09 Not everyone can hire, like hired help,
15:13 to do laundry or to do grocery shopping for you.
15:16 But for example, for me, sometimes as a CEO of a company,
15:20 if I could make hundreds of dollars in an hour,
15:24 and I could pay someone $15 to go get the groceries,
15:28 that does make sense actually,
15:30 like financially for them to do that in certain seasons.
15:33 Now that hasn't always been the case,
15:34 and I wanna be sensitive
15:35 to lots of different people out there.
15:38 There's been times where I've eaten lunch at Costco,
15:40 three meals a day, until I can buy, you know?
15:43 So it's all good.
15:44 But if you're like leaning into something career-wise
15:49 and you need extra help from other people,
15:51 I think that's a big thing for women
15:53 is that we start to feel kind of guilty
15:55 if we're paying someone else to do like,
15:56 quote unquote, our job.
15:58 When really if there's like two working people
16:01 in the household,
16:02 makes sense that you might need a third person
16:04 to help you out with some of these chores.
16:06 - Yeah, I mean, it takes more than a village.
16:09 It takes a lot of people to care for a child, right?
16:13 Dr. Wendy is going to give away a signed copy of the book
16:18 to somebody who leaves a comment or asks her a question.
16:21 So go ahead and do that.
16:23 We have a few more minutes.
16:24 So my problem and the problem of lots of people here,
16:29 I think sometimes is knowing what is enough?
16:32 Like what is enough to do, right?
16:35 - Yeah.
16:37 - How do we get to the crux of like,
16:39 what are the things we should be doing?
16:41 And when we can be like, okay, I've got enough on my plate.
16:44 How do you do that?
16:45 - Yeah, absolutely.
16:47 Well, okay, so good question, right?
16:49 My husband yesterday, he goes,
16:50 you know, I think you need a hobby.
16:52 I don't think so.
16:52 I have plenty of stuff that I do.
16:54 I don't need a hobby.
16:57 But the way I figure out what I wanna spend my time
17:01 and my energy on,
17:02 and this is how I coach other women too.
17:03 And in the book, we talk about it.
17:04 Here's a little postcard.
17:06 Oh, here we go.
17:07 Here's a postcard of how it looks.
17:08 Is to figure out what are the top five things
17:12 that are a combination of things
17:14 that give you a lot of energy,
17:16 that are kind of energy drivers versus energy drainers,
17:20 plus that meet your values.
17:22 And we walk through in great detail
17:24 exactly how to figure this out.
17:26 So it sounds more complicated than it is,
17:27 but it's really not.
17:28 How to basically just define what are the five areas
17:33 that if someone said, hey, you have a week,
17:35 you could do whatever you want with this time.
17:37 Where would you spend your time, your energy, your focus?
17:40 And so I really help people to define those things first.
17:43 I call them the center points and your centered vision.
17:46 And then outside of that is where you place
17:49 all this other junk that has to get done.
17:50 The dishes don't live in the middle of my centered vision.
17:53 I don't care one thing about the dishes.
17:56 They have to get done,
17:57 but I'm not gonna spend all day making sure
17:59 that they're perfectly aligned in my cabinet.
18:01 I do care a ton about contributing to other women.
18:05 So when there's a request on my time to do that,
18:07 for example, right now, I'm almost always gonna say yes,
18:11 because that's in full alignment with my values
18:13 and things that I love to do
18:15 and that make me feel really good.
18:16 I'm almost always gonna say yes
18:18 to really deep connections with my kids.
18:21 That doesn't mean that I'm gonna spend
18:23 every waking moment with them,
18:24 because me spending 24/7 with them is not great.
18:27 I mean, I'm gonna invest in those moments
18:29 that feel like we're reading together,
18:32 we're cuddling on a couch.
18:34 We're really, like I'm listening to them.
18:36 Those times where we feel like,
18:38 okay, they're asking for my attention
18:39 'cause they're having a problem with a friend.
18:41 So that's how I tell people to define kind of like,
18:44 what are the things that you feel
18:45 are really meaningful in your life?
18:47 How do we give more of you to those things?
18:50 - Yes, yes.
18:51 And as trite as it sounds,
18:52 I like to think of the death bed.
18:54 On your death bed, are you going to care
18:56 that the dishes were always done?
18:58 Are you going to care that you spent that quality time?
19:01 - Exactly.
19:02 - Yeah, and we're not here as experts.
19:06 We're having this conversation
19:07 because we're trying to figure it out too.
19:09 And Dr. Whitney is further along in that than I am for sure.
19:12 But tell everybody where they can find out more about you
19:18 and your work.
19:19 - Yeah, okay.
19:20 So my website is called Modern Mommy Doc.
19:23 We have a weekly blog that goes out.
19:25 There's a weekly podcast or bi-weekly podcast that goes out.
19:28 So I have lots of cool guests that come on there.
19:31 I have three books.
19:32 One is about newborns.
19:34 One is about working moms
19:35 with the American Academy of Pediatrics.
19:37 And then this new book that's coming out, "Doing It All."
19:40 It's out January 30th.
19:41 It's available wherever books are sold.
19:43 If you go on my website before January 30th,
19:47 the day that it comes out,
19:48 you can actually get a free one-hour consultation with me.
19:51 So to help you figure out if you're feeling stuck
19:54 and you get free access to our app,
19:56 which has over a hundred hours of video library content,
20:00 audio visual stuff that you put together
20:02 on navigating kids' emotions,
20:04 getting a parenting partner on board,
20:06 like a husband or partner if you have one,
20:10 how to help in terms of getting yourself
20:12 all that self-care that you really need.
20:14 So lots of bonuses right now that are happening
20:16 just as the book is about to come out.
20:18 - Well, that's cool.
20:19 I mean, for the hour consultation alone,
20:22 you ought to get the book.
20:23 (laughing)
20:24 - Yeah, and it's on audiobook and regular.
20:26 So if you're a busy person and you're driving or commuting,
20:29 that's a good way to do it too.
20:30 - Right, definitely.
20:31 Don't read and drive.
20:32 - No. (laughing)
20:33 - That's not a good idea.
20:35 Thank you so much for talking with me
20:37 and for sharing some of this.
20:40 Hopefully you've given people a little bit of a glimmer
20:42 into how we can stop doing it all,
20:45 but still okay about it.
20:47 And you guys go get the book.
20:48 It's a really good book.
20:49 You're gonna want it.
20:50 Thank you so much.
20:51 - Thank you.
20:52 Take care.
20:53 - Take care.
20:54 Okay.

Recommended