Suzanne Falter, THE EXTREMELY BUSY WOMAN'S GUIDE TO SELF-CARE
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[1:22]Hi, interviewed Suzanne falter today, and I just have to say this is the second try
[1:26]because the first time Suzanne and I did our interview, we had a technical malfunction,
[1:31]and the whole thing did not get recorded, which was really upsetting, especially because Suzanne
[1:36]lost her daughter at age 22, and it was a very emotional interview, so I re-interviewed her,
[1:42]and that's what you'll hear now, but in case I sounded in any way flippant about anything she told me,
[1:48]we had gone through sort of a both crying situation the last time, so obviously I do care,
[1:54]and I hope I sounded that way, but just wanted to preface it with that sort of background.
[1:58]Anyway, here's her biome. Suzanne falter is an author, speaker, novelist, and host of
[2:03]the self-care for extremely busy women podcast. Her nonfiction books include the extremely
[2:08]busy women's guide to self-care, the joy of letting go, how much joy can you stand and surrendering
[2:13]to joy. After losing her 22-year-old daughter, Teal, in 2012, Suzanne's work shifted to help her
[2:19]find the way back to joy, peace, and balance. She has written LGBT fiction, including the series
[2:24]transformed and oak town girls. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,
[2:29]self-fitness, and other publications. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her wife.
[2:35]Welcome, Suzanne. Thanks for coming on Moms, and I have time to read books.
[2:38]Hello, Zuby, and thank you for having me very, very much.
[2:41]And thank you, because you had me on your podcast first, which I greatly enjoyed over last summer,
[2:46]so thank you for kicking us off on the right foot. That was great. It was really a show.
[2:52]So I feel very happy that I can return this little podcast relationship we have in.
[2:57]Tell right into your story, and you're amazing, but I call the extremely busy woman's guide
[3:01]to self-care. You've also written how much joy can you stand, living your joy, surrendering
[3:06]to joy, podcast, you're like all over the place. The joy of letting go, even. The joy of letting go,
[3:12]amazing. So what made you start writing? Tell me your story. I know you have a very inspirational,
[3:18]sad, happy, everything story. Tell me all about it and how you're that started.
[3:23]In this book, this particular book, the extremely busy woman's guide, yes. Okay. So in 2012,
[3:30]I was a very driven, very cranked up, highly ambitious workaholic, trying to make the super big
[3:41]bucks. And I had lost my soul, basically, in a nutshell. I was so driven that I had allowed myself
[3:53]to stop really connecting and caring about people. And I was working all the time. And I really
[3:59]thought that everything was going great. And then you're all fell apart. And in a very short order,
[4:04]the relationship I was in ended, the house I was living in went with the other person.
[4:11]I moved out. I was kind of a drift. The business I'd created was floundering because I was
[4:17]burned out because I was working too hard. And all of it just disappeared. And then in that same
[4:23]three month period, my daughter, my 22 year old daughter, who was living in San Francisco where I was
[4:30]living, suddenly dropped dead, mathematically unexplainable cardiac arrest. And that just stopped
[4:37]everything. I was thinking, okay, I'll just regroup and retrench. But then when Teal died,
[4:42]I just stopped. I didn't know what to do. I was, I literally didn't work for two years.
[4:50]And during that time, I just started to slow down. And for the first time in decades,
[4:56]I began to listen to myself. And I began to tune into my needs. And I began getting a lot of help
[5:03]with different issues I had, many of which focused on the importance of self-care. At the same time,
[5:10]Teal, my daughter, who was the opposite of me, and was really a present, funny, completely
[5:18]unambiguous, very compassionate, loving person left behind a journal filled with little quotes
[5:28]that were all about being a better person. And her collapse was such that her heart was restarted.
[5:37]And she was in a coma for a week from what she never awoke. But she'd been in a locked bathroom for
[5:42]for 20 minutes. And then EMT's revived her heart. So she technically she was still alive,
[5:47]but she was pretty good. And when I saw her in the hospital at first few minutes, I knew she would
[5:53]die. I knew I would be changed forever. And I knew that this healing work, she kept saying to me,
[6:00]I want to be a healer. This is my next thing. I'm going to be a healing mom. That was going to be my job.
[6:05]But first, I had to heal myself. So I focused on self-care. And that was a very big job because I was
[6:13]so resistant. I didn't know how to listen to myself. I didn't know how to slow down. I didn't know
[6:20]how to stop being so hard on myself. My inner conversation was terrible. You know, I had no
[6:26]compassion for myself, none. And when I talked to really busy women, you know, women with small
[6:33]kids who are also working full time or sometimes even super busy retirees remarkably,
[6:40]they always kind of have the same issue. We have this inner dialogue about how we have to push
[6:45]strive and achieve and do more and more until it was all about undoing and being very present.
[6:54]One of the things she wrote on many pages in this journal was be and you know, or just be.
[7:01]She used to say that to me. She'd be like, mom, just be. Needless to say, I had no idea what she was
[7:08]done. It was very funny that it pulled just bething. And now what I really know is that
[7:16]I am here to do this healing work because I've gotten so much out of it. My life is dramatically
[7:23]different. I'm in a great marriage now and living a blissful life. I can only put it that way.
[7:32]And there's balance. You know, I had to learn how to slow down and tune in and listen to myself
[7:39]and be able to answer the question, what do you need right now? A remarkably difficult question
[7:44]for some of us to answer. So is that the secret? Is that the secret to tapping into self care?
[7:49]And by the way, and I know we've talked about the loss of your daughter several times,
[7:53]but I just have to say how sorry I am one more time because each time I hear your story,
[7:58]it still just stops me in my tracks. I'm sure I can't, you know, your experience,
[8:03]the fact that you've taken it and now helping other people is just so amazing. And I
[8:08]filled with gratitude for you and how you've managed to pull yourself out of this and
[8:12]come out the other side blissful, which is really incredible. But is that the secret to self-care?
[8:18]Just saying, what do I need now? And, you know, because then what about all the other things
[8:21]you have to do right now? I might want to go lay on my couch, but, you know, that's just not
[8:27]going to happen. I would say you may be able to get two minutes to lie on your couch. You may be
[8:33]able to set a boundary. It may be that you have kids, right? So an awful lot of people listening
[8:39]to this, although I suspect there are a few who sneak in are mothers of children and super busy.
[8:45]No sneakers. This is not just for moms. Anybody can listen? Anybody who loves books and wants to
[8:50]learn or wants to improve themselves or, you know, doesn't have as much time as they want to read?
[8:55]So just all of that. Okay, go on. Second of all, you know, the key is to understand that you
[9:04]can make time for it. It may not be exactly this minute, but that gets a post-mark and the post-mark
[9:09]gets acted on. What we do is we go, oh, you know, I could really use a nap. I'll get to that.
[9:15]And then we let everything else intrude. And this begins the very uncomfortable process of
[9:20]actually putting yourself first. This is the most difficult thing for women. I have a little
[9:25]Facebook group and all these women who are these extremely busy women. They come in and I ask them,
[9:30]what's your biggest self-care challenge? Nine times out of 10, they say, putting myself first.
[9:36]It is how we're wired. We're wired to believe that the world will crumble if we don't step up and,
[9:44]you know, save the day. Does it mean that the kids may not have the crust cut off of their sandwiches?
[9:50]Does it mean, you know, if we don't, I think what I'm trying to say is if we don't stop and take a
[9:56]little time for ourselves, fewer of the details may get handled.
[10:00]And that's okay, because over production is the issue.
[10:05]We think we've got to be everything for everyone.
[10:07]We think we couldn't possibly take an app, it would all go to hell.
[10:11]No, okay, if you're alone in the house with a two year old, yeah, probably an app may
[10:15]not be a perfect app.
[10:16]You're on, unless they're napping, then I think it's okay.
[10:21]At which pace they will wake you up, but if they're like, you know, eight year old and
[10:28]they are demanding things from you that you don't want to do or don't have time for
[10:33]you can say no.
[10:35]And sometimes it's the large eight year old who is our spouse, you know.
[10:41]I mean, sometimes our partners show up like eight year olds and they demand things from us
[10:47]where we need to say not right now.
[10:49]I can't do that.
[10:51]And shockingly, I'm going to close my door and have five to 10 to 20 minutes alone.
[10:55]I might meditate.
[10:57]I might do a little yoga knee draw, which is this wonderful practice of lying on the
[11:01]floor and being guided through audios with your old body relaxing.
[11:06]You wake up from that.
[11:07]You're ready for another 12 hours of hardcore mommy time bringing it on.
[11:12]This is the oxygen mask, ladies.
[11:15]That's what this is.
[11:16]This is about giving yourself permission to look at your own needs.
[11:22]And some of us haven't looked at those needs and so long.
[11:24]It's like that closet is dark.
[11:26]You know what I'm saying?
[11:27]So how do you get people to open up that closet so to speak?
[11:33]This is how I do it.
[11:35]Or people read the book.
[11:36]I mean, the book has a lot of questionnaires and little journal prompts and things you
[11:42]can pick up and do in an odd five minutes.
[11:44]Maybe you're waiting for the kids in line with all the other cars at school or whatever.
[11:49]And you just chip away at it here and there and you start to get clarity on the places
[11:54]in your life.
[11:55]You haven't thought about much.
[11:57]I mean, the whole back half of the book, I talk about the things we need in our lives.
[12:03]We need exercise.
[12:04]We need sleep.
[12:05]We need environments that are soothing.
[12:08]We need friends.
[12:10]We need to have fun.
[12:11]Maybe we haven't had fun and forever.
[12:13]You know, I mean, is you read about these things?
[12:16]Of course, I'm throwing in, you know, ideas and so forth and studies and evidence.
[12:22]You know, why this might be important or that.
[12:24]But as you read them, my hope is people will be inspired to really look around and go,
[12:31]boy, you know, I haven't painted this bedroom in 10 years and it really looks bad.
[12:37]You know, you wouldn't notice unless somebody brought it up, right?
[12:41]But really Zibi, it's like there are some basics to self care.
[12:46]And the first one is understanding your needs.
[12:47]So the first one is answering that question.
[12:50]What do I need right now?
[12:52]And sometimes we get a blank, right?
[12:54]But you got to stick with it.
[12:56]The next would be setting boundaries.
[12:59]And this is what I've been talking about.
[13:00]Who can we say no to?
[13:02]Could we stop being the volunteer mom who does everything and makes space for some other
[13:06]mother to show up?
[13:08]It's important to be able to know what your boundaries are and honor them.
[13:13]When something pushes you and it feels wrong, that's a boundary.
[13:17]That's a red flag.
[13:18]That's a place where you are being pushed.
[13:20]And if you just roll right over it and ignore it, you're missing an opportunity to collect
[13:25]and conserve your personal power.
[13:27]You're missing an opportunity to get back into this beautiful alignment we were born
[13:32]with where our heart and our soul and our head and our mind and our actions throughout
[13:38]the day are all one.
[13:41]That's when we can be great partners and mothers and employees and leaders and people.
[13:47]We can be freaking happy.
[13:50]That's a point, right?
[13:52]But the third basic is to ask for help when you need it.
[13:57]It's so hard for us to ask for help.
[14:00]Again, it's that mistaken belief that we must carry the world on our shoulders.
[14:04]But we don't have to.
[14:06]We just have to be willing to look around and let somebody support us as vulnerable and
[14:12]as weak as that may feel.
[14:15]Number four is to take action and you know, I know there are head notters out there.
[14:20]There are people saying, oh, yeah, maybe this will get me to exercise.
[14:22]Oh, yeah, I should really do that.
[14:24]The key is just to start.
[14:26]And you can start, you know, start like this.
[14:29]I've forgotten the author's name, you might know it, but the creator of the mini habit started
[14:33]a developed his own exercise self care routine when he allowed himself to do one push-up.
[14:42]Just one.
[14:43]And then he realized, wow, you do one, you just want to do more.
[14:47]And so he started developing this idea of mini habits.
[14:50]You could spend one minute on exercise.
[14:53]You could jump around for two minutes with the stereo one, three minute, fun party break,
[14:58]you know.
[14:59]And then you might go, hey, that actually felt pretty good.
[15:01]Maybe I'd even go for a walk for 20 minutes.
[15:04]This is the idea is to break it down into small actionable steps and then start to build
[15:09]them into your life as habits.
[15:11]Is it possible to get up 10 minutes early and do some Pilates or, you know, crunches or
[15:17]whatever delights you before your children wake up?
[15:20]Shock a row.
[15:21]I know sounds harsh, pre-coffee, but you really want to do it.
[15:25]That's one way to fit it in.
[15:26]If you believe that you can't take that 10 minutes for yourself any other time of the day
[15:32]and PS between you and me, I think you probably could.
[15:34]Are you talking to me now or this is everybody?
[15:39]Outed.
[15:42]Okay, I'll go do a push-up, I promise.
[15:44]Oh my gosh, bottom line is you want to build this stuff into your life as habits.
[15:51]Because otherwise, you know, if we think about it, we're like, yeah, I'm gonna go have
[15:56]fun with my friends.
[15:57]No, let's have a fun night.
[15:59]Let's have a fun afternoon once a week.
[16:02]You know, see only when I get myself to yoga, because I'm an older person, I get
[16:05]an yoga that everybody's younger and more stretchy and stuff like that and I'm like
[16:10]hell.
[16:11]Not to go to yoga on Wednesdays.
[16:14]Wednesdays is yoga day.
[16:16]You know?
[16:17]Wow.
[16:18]So you also are a huge advocate for organ donation and go out and talk about that a bunch.
[16:23]Tell me a little more about that.
[16:25]Okay, so the circumstances around heel's death that her heart stopped but was restarted
[16:30]and she was in a coma for six days before they could really take a look at her brain
[16:36]and understand how much damage should happen, was such that she was a perfect candidate
[16:42]for organ donation.
[16:44]There are very, very few perfect candidates for organ donation, which is why at any given
[16:49]time, I think there's something like 10 or 12,000 organ donations made every year.
[16:54]And there's something like 185,000 people on the list.
[16:58]I mean, the odds are staggering and that is something that's shifting as the transplantation
[17:04]industry.
[17:05]If you can call it an industry, the transplantation world evolves to become better and more
[17:10]organized and more databases and they're more people donating.
[17:14]But aside from that, my work is to talk about my experience as a donor mom.
[17:20]Now when you donate organs of a loved one, particularly a child, you're really not in
[17:27]your right mind.
[17:29]You're just kind of going, okay, fine, you're still in shock.
[17:33]I was in shock unless perhaps you might have anticipated this death, but then maybe the
[17:38]person involved wouldn't be a good donor.
[17:40]Usually it's a sudden death, you know.
[17:43]So Teal's heart kidney, both kidneys are heart and are pancreas.
[17:48]We're all donated to other people.
[17:51]And her pancreas went to a woman who had kids, who was a middle-aged woman, all here
[17:56]in California.
[17:57]One of her kidneys went to a woman in her fifties in the Bay Area.
[18:03]And her heart and her other kidney went to a young woman just a little older than Teal.
[18:10]And this is significant because I have contacted her and I have a relationship with her
[18:15]now.
[18:16]And more particularly, I have an amazing relationship with her mother.
[18:20]And I have been a speaker for many years in my previous work as a self-help author, etc.
[18:26]And when I was going through this period of grief, I was closely in touch with the organ
[18:31]procurement agency who arranged the transplantation part of their job is to reach out to
[18:36]the donor families.
[18:37]And for a whole year, they call you up periodically to make sure you're getting what you
[18:41]need.
[18:42]You've got grief support if you need it, etc.
[18:45]And at the end of that year, she had connected us with Amara, who was the young woman who
[18:51]got Teal's heart and kidney.
[18:53]And she and I were just chatting and she said, kind of out of the blue hair, you a speaker.
[18:57]And I was like, well, yes, I'm a speaker.
[18:59]How did you know I was a speaker?
[19:01]Because at that point, I wasn't working and didn't work for two years.
[19:06]She said, well, I don't know why I asked you, but would you like to speak about your experience?
[19:11]And pretty soon, I was doing keynotes at big conferences for people who are in this world
[19:16]of transplantation.
[19:18]Five years after Teal's death, I met Amara and her mother on the beach where we scattered
[19:23]to Teal's ashes.
[19:24]And it was such an incredible meeting.
[19:27]And I kind of saw them, I was with my wife, and we saw them at a distance, they were very
[19:31]small.
[19:32]And I just knew them out of all the people there, and I was like, that's them.
[19:36]And we came together.
[19:37]We had this very tearful, loving moment of connection between strangers.
[19:42]And it was just incredible.
[19:43]It was really incredible at which point I promptly put my sandals down, wandered off, and
[19:49]we had to spend the next 20 minutes looking for my shoes, which was a bonding experience,
[19:54]actually.
[19:55]So that night, we had dinner together, and we showed Amara a video.
[20:00]teal singing, teal was in fact a very accomplished blues singer. And she said, I know her, I feel
[20:06]like I know her. And it was just this cool, cool moment. Anyway, Debbie and I, her mom,
[20:12]Amber's mom, Debbie and I, really sparked a connection that night. And the next day we were
[20:16]texting each other. And she said, I would really like to do these talks with you. And I had
[20:22]woken up thinking, Oh, God, it'd be so great if I could get Debbie to do these talks with me,
[20:26]because Amber's quite a, quite a introverted sort of person. She's not particularly interested in
[20:32]getting up on stage. She would do it. But, you know, she, she clearly, it's like not her favorite thing.
[20:39]Debbie, however, she's just one of those people who's natural. And I could really see it that night
[20:45]at dinner. And I woke up with that thought. And then she texted me. So now we give these talks together.
[20:50]And we go to different places around the country and speak about our shared experience with
[20:55]organ donation. And what we've learned, this is so interesting is the way this talk is evolved
[21:02]is to become about how crisis wipes the slate clean and allows you to begin again. And you can get
[21:12]in touch with your true values. It's the catalyst for true values. And after Debbie went through an
[21:18]eight year experience with her daughter with congestive heart failure, which she got from a virus,
[21:24]she had congestive heart failure almost died three times. Debbie's a single mom working her tail off
[21:31]and taking care of a potentially dying child who's four hours away in the nearest center,
[21:38]you know, major city hospital, which was San Francisco. She was up in the mountains.
[21:42]And after that experience, you know, we went through this whole thing. She had another child
[21:48]have a near death experience and car accident. You recovered fully with five of his friends.
[21:55]Oh my goodness. And I all walked away, which was like they didn't walk away. They had to go to
[21:58]the hospital for a while, but they all recovered. Then last year, her home burned to the ground
[22:04]in Paradise, California in the worst wildfire in California history. So this is a person who really
[22:09]has been through something. And I want to tell you this brings tears to my eyes. She's the most
[22:14]resilient person I've ever met. She is the most resilient person I've ever met. And we just get
[22:20]together and cry all the time because because we're so grateful for our lives and we're so grateful
[22:28]to have the ability to communicate this message to people. So this is kind of the part two of this
[22:35]what I like to think of as the teal legacy because the first part is about helping women
[22:42]reconnect to who they are and become far more willing to be compassionate and honor themselves.
[22:51]It's like the loving version of me too. We're going to turn that, turn that fierce protection
[23:00]to ourselves in a way that would say, what can I do for myself today, right? And then to be able
[23:08]to have this opportunity to talk about restarting life. That's like amazing. So thank you for asking.
[23:16]Oh my gosh. It's so powerful. No, you're, it's amazing. It's amazing. The current, no, it's like,
[23:24]it's just amazing. These examples of women like you and Debbie and courage and resilience for
[23:31]both of you and the good that you do for other people is really, really amazing. And all the
[23:36]the women you seek to help with your self-care guides and all the other personal. I mean, it's really
[23:41]so giving and generous of you. And it's amazing. So thank you. I hardly feel like I'm doing anything
[23:48]other than the work I've been given to do. Great forward thing. Well Suzanne, thank you. And
[23:54]thanks for coming on mom. So I have time to read books and for sharing your story and for trying to get
[23:59]all the rest of us to take better care of ourselves, which I will, I will hear your voice in my head
[24:04]as I proceed about your day. And for moms who don't have time to read if they want to listen,
[24:09]I've actually narrated the audiobook of this book, which is kind of shocking. I'd never done that before.
[24:15]That's fun. And it was fun. It was fun. You know, it's part of the whole body work, I guess.
[24:21]Excellent. Yeah. Thank you. Well, thanks Suzanne. I'll probably Skype you soon. I feel like we're
[24:28]now we're like little Skype buddies. So, you know, send me a wave, whatever. I will. Thank you,
[24:34]Sibi. Okay, take care. Bye bye. You've been listening to moms and have time to read books with
[24:40]Zibi Owens. Please make sure to sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com to get more updates
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[25:03]moms don't have time to read books. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the
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[25:13]now trim music. Thanks for listening. You can always email me at Zibi at Zibi Owens.com.