FTBM Podcast Ep310: When Your Calendar Is Full and You're Running on Empty

FTBM Podcast Ep310: When Your Calendar Is Full and You're Running on Empty

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Vanessa: You know that feeling when you look at your calendar and every single thing on it matters. Like you can't find one thing that you can move, one thing that you can cut the thing to say no to. Because all of it is something that you care deeply about, deeply something that you're committed to, something someone is counting on you for. And so you just keep going, right? You find another hour in the day. You wake up earlier, you stay up later, and you tell yourself that this is just a season of life that you're in.

And I wanna talk about that today because I've been living it. And I made a big decision recently that was hard, really hard, and I know that you're going to want to hear it.

Here we go. 

You are listening to the Free to Be Mindful podcast, where busy moms get practical tips and real talk .Conversations to find calm joy in a little more breathing room in everyday life. I'm Vanessa Licensed therapist, mom, coach, and a mom to a tween and toddler. Each week we get honest about motherhood and [00:01:00] mindset helping you live with more presence, less pressure without losing your well, you know.

Here we go.

Hello and welcome to episode three 10 of the Free To Be Mindful podcast. I hope that you're feeling good, looking good and doing better in this world than you were yesterday.

So today wanna share something personal with you. It's a decision that I made about the show and about myself, and it's one that did not come easily. And I'm sharing it because I have a feeling that you're going to hear yourself in this, so stay with me.

If you've been with me, at least to the start of this calendar year, you know that my word of the year was deliberate. I came into 2026, very intentional about that word. I stepped off boards I had been serving on. I took a hard look at my time. I did a time audit and I knew where my hours were going. I made some real decisions about how I wanted to spend [00:02:00] more of my time. And when I did this, I wanna be clear with you that things did come off my plate, like big things came off. But even with that, I still wasn't seeing a clear and direct return. Like it felt like I was always on.

And last week, specifically Tuesday night, I was up till three o'clock in the morning. Wednesday night I was up till two o'clock in the morning. And I wasn't scrolling or watching tv. I was like pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, really working until two and three o'clock in the morning and I got a ton done.

But then I woke up at the same time as always. I had to take my son to school. I started the day running on empty. And then I was trying to be present for my toddler while also running businesses. And being present for my clients.

And something in me said, girl, this is not sustainable. This is nowhere near healthy. And that's when I started seriously thinking about making a hard decision. But here's what I want you to understand, [00:03:00] because this goes deeper than just being a schedule problem. I know that there are so many of you who relate with me on this. I'm a natural overachiever. I, I don't really like that about myself, but I know that that's part of who I am. I've always been wired this way.

Part of it was indeed built into me deliberately, lovingly, and very early on. I remember very clearly, I was about nine or 10 years old, and my dad looked at me and said, "you always have to work twice as hard as everyone else."

And he wasn't wrong. He was prepping me for a world that would ask more of me and give me less credit for it. And this was out of an act of love, and it was also a blueprint, and blueprints don't disappear just because we grew up and started thinking for ourselves. They actually become the small voice at the back of our minds at 2:00 AM that says, "keep going. You're almost there. You can rest when it's done."

In Dominican households, in Latino [00:04:00] households, in first gen households, rest isn't presented as a reward. It's actually presented as a risk because if you slow down, you fall behind. If you ease up, someone else is gonna pass you. And that was the story that I was handed and I ran with it for decades up until current day.

And unpacking that story, really looking at it honestly, it doesn't mean that I'm dishonoring where that story came from. Right. I'm glad my dad gave me everything he had. But it does mean asking yourself, " does this blueprint still serve me now or is it costing me more than it's giving me? 

And this right here is the kind of conversation that I bring to my speaking engagements. The intersection of cultural identity and overachievement and what it costs high achieving women specifically to keep performing at the level that the world expects of them.

If you're in an organization, a company, Or a space where women leaders [00:05:00] need this conversation, i'd love to be in the room with you. The link to inquire about speaking engagements is below in the show notes.

And now being deliberate is not only about what comes off of your plate. It's also about fully being present for what's these on the plate. And I have been practicing that. I've been intentional about showing up to my daughter's my gym classes, her ballet classes. And not just like physically being in the room when my mind is somewhere else but actually being on there. If you follow me on Instagram @counselorvdejesus, you may have seen some pictures and it, it's the cutest thing, right?

And in the middle of our living room sometimes she, she comes to me, she grabs my hand, and she literally pulls me up out of my seat whenever a Miss Rachel song happens to be playing, and we start dancing. And again, I am fully present. I am there in the moment. And that is what deliberate looks like for me right now. And I had to make some really hard [00:06:00] choices to make that real. Not just something that I plan to do eventually, but to make it real right now.

So after those 2:00 AM nights just last week. After sitting with all of this, and reflecting on where that came from, and after asking myself honestly about what I was protecting and what I was sacrificing, I made a decision about the Free To Be Mindful podcast. I am moving the podcast to a biweekly schedule for the remainder of the season. . And that means that instead of having episodes come out every Monday, they're going to be released every other Monday until the end of June. Then I'll be taking July off to then come back strong in season eight.

And I'll be really honest with you, this was not an easy decision. This is seven years of podcasting, over 300 episodes, and a little guilt sitting with me around this, [00:07:00] especially about being named Feed spot's number one Latino Mental Health podcast for 2026.

That recognition meant a lot, and it also means that I have a responsibility to protect what I've built so that I can keep it going. The most deliberate thing that I can do right now for myself, for my family, and honestly for you, is to choose this show with purpose, rather than just maintaining it on fumes. 

So I do wanna provide you with three things that you can actually take with you from this episode. Because I know that while this is true to me with the podcast, I'm sure it is true with you for other areas of your life.

And the first is to find the blueprint running in the backgrounds, right? That voice that tells you that you have to work twice as hard, that rest is risk. That slowing down means falling behind. Wonder, where did that voice come from? And then name it. Because it doesn't go away just because you [00:08:00] name it and 'cause you're aware of it, but you do stop mistaking it for truth, and that is important if we want change to come our way.

The second is that even if deliberate was not your word of the year, this still applies to you. I want you to check whether being deliberate is actually showing up in your calendar and in your body. And not just of what needs to be removed or taken off your plate, but in the moments when you're present, is your mind actually present there along with your body, right? At that gym class, at dinner table in that conversation? Or are you just physically there and mentally somewhere else entirely?

Those moments aren't for you to beat yourself up about it, right? It's actually just pieces of data and they tell you whether the changes that you're making are actually landing or whether you're still running with the old blueprint, just with a new label on it.

And then the third is to give yourself permission to make that [00:09:00] hard call before something else breaks. We typically wait for the crash. We wait for our bodies to give out. We wait for our patience to run thin or to run out, or for something to fall apart before we make some hard decisions. Right? Then it's after those things that we tend to recalibrate.

However, the goal is to choose before the choice is made for you. That is what deliberate leadership looks like. And that can be true whether it be in your home, in your workplace, or in your personal life.

So I want you to take a moment here before I let you go, because I know that you need this. I want you to think about that voice that you inherited around the aspect of rest and work. Whose voice is it? Is it your mom's? Your dad's, a community that you grew up in, a culture that told you what it meant to be strong?

You don't have to argue with that voice [00:10:00] or with that old blueprint. You don't even have to fix it. But I do want you to notice it. Notice where it lives. Notice what it sounds like. And what it says even when you think about slowing down. And then ask yourself this one question, is there one place, just one where I could choose being deliberate this week? Doesn't mean to quit or to give up, or to walk away from something that really matters to you. It just means to choose that thing on purpose, instead of just running on autopilot.

I want you to sit with that thought and then with that choice, because that choice is where it really starts.

Amigas, if this episode resonated with you, I wanna ask you something and it would genuinely mean a lot to me. Please consider leaving a review for the show, whether you're on Apple Podcast, Spotify, it just [00:11:00] takes a couple of seconds and it's one of the most powerful ways to help moms find this community. And if you're not yet following the show on your podcast platform or subscribed to it on YouTube, please do that right now because with the new biweekly schedule, you're gonna want to make sure that that notification shows up or that it just downloads automatically to your phone so that you don't miss the next episode two weeks from now.

Everything else, speaking, therapy, coaching. It's all linked below in the show notes.

I wanna thank you for being here and I wanna thank you for providing me the space where I can keep it real with you, and I hope that you understand the decision, and that you make deliberate decisions for yourself as well.

Thank you as we continue going in this seventh season and for over 300 episodes of trust. I'll see you in two weeks and remember that in a world where you are free to be anything, you're always free to be [00:12:00] mindful. See you then.

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