Why Should Women Play Smaller to Prove They Rest | Ep316

Why Should Women Play Smaller to Prove They Rest | Ep316

Vanessa: [00:00:00] So picture this. It's July in the Caribbean. Everyone around me is floating. My son's playing volleyball in the pool with kids he just met an hour ago like they've been friends for years. And then my husband's entertaining our daughter, who somehow looks like an Olympian swimmer with floaties on. And I'm just a few feet away in a lounge chair with my remarkable notebook open and the pen is going, already sketching what this exact show is going to look like and sound like next.

And I loved every second of it. Just because my version of relaxing is different than yours doesn't make it wrong, and that's what we're getting into today.

You're listening to the Free To Be Mindful podcast, the space for high-achieving women who give their best to everyone and are ready to keep some of it for themselves. I'm Vanessa, licensed therapist, speaker, and mom coach. I know what it takes to build a life you're proud of without losing yourself in the process.

Each week, we get honest about ambition, identity, and the parts of ourselves that we [00:01:00] quietly set aside. Here we go

Vanessa: Hello, and welcome to episode 316 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 if you're new here, welcome. We are just coming back with this episode off of our summer break, and we are also coming back as the number one Latino mental health podcast of 2026 according to Feedspot. So if you're just finding us, you're finding us at a very good moment.

And for those of you who've been with me for quite a while, you know that September has always meant something different for me. I've spent almost 20 years as an educator before I left that life to build this life full time, but September always feels like the actual start of my new year, at least.

It's a season that I refresh a lot of things, new systems, new policies in my business. My birthday's later on this month. And this time around, I also come with a refreshed direction for this podcast.

And here is where I [00:02:00] wanna start off the season, right out the gates.

Women need to stop apologizing for wanting more plain and simple. Because let me show you what that actually looked like this summer.

We did leave the country, right? Palm trees, ocean, beautiful weather, my kids loving the pool, the ocean right at our footsteps.

It was genuinely a beautiful, wonderful, and relaxing experience. And none of what I'm about to tell you next cancels any of that out. At the exact same time that all of that was true, what was also true is that my therapy practice had the busiest summer and the busiest month that it's ever had. In addition to that, I also built out a brand new business, The Kid Clinician, and this was happening while I was supposedly off the clock, but my brain just kept going.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, notebook open by the pool, I was planning this exact season of the podcast, the direction that we're going to go in, the shift that you're hearing right now.[00:03:00]

But this wasn't a summer where I failed to slow down, because I did slow down. It just looked different. This summer was everything that I wanted. I rested, and I worked, and I built. All three things, all done on purpose, and yes, all done at the same time.

And I know that that statement and my story may not sit well with everybody, because there's a version of rest that a lot of us were taught to expect, right? Phone completely away, the notebook completely closed, the laptop nowhere in sight, doing absolutely nothing. And some people may say that that is the whole point of taking time off. Some would say that I should have unplugged entirely, and I should have just put the practice on autopilot, and have taken less clients, and let the new business wait until the fall, and given the podcast a real rest instead of planning it from a lounge chair.

And maybe, maybe I could have done that. But I keep coming back to one question, and [00:04:00] that is why should women play smaller with their ambition just to prove that they know how to rest? Right? Would we ever say that to a man building three things all at once, that his rest doesn't count unless he stops everything completely?

The fact is that we wouldn't. We would call that ambition. We would call it drive. And if you're listening to this, you know that the podcast, my practice, my brand is called Free To Be Mindful. Because yes, we should enjoy where our feet are and be present in our moments. But we can be present and feel a little bit more relaxed and still be present intentionally and consciously and thinking, "This is what I want for quarter four. This is what I want for my twenty twenty-seven." We don't have to be completely still to enjoy where our feet are. We just need to know how to do both intentionally.

Because underneath all of it is the thing that I want this whole season built [00:05:00] around, and that is if the reason you want more comes from something alive, from something that genuinely lights you up, that's a completely different thing from wanting more because you're afraid of what happens if you stop. 

The reason underneath the wanting is what makes the difference more than the amount of doing ever could.

And there's a real difference between wanting more because it lights you up and wanting more because you're afraid of what happens the moment you stop. I know that difference in my body.

This summer, while I was building, it didn't feel like running from something. It felt like reaching towards something that I actually wanted, and not with a feeling of desperation, but with a feeling of ambition. And that is the kind of ambition that I believe in, the kind that comes from wanting, not from fear. And when the wanting comes from that place, then rest isn't something that you have to earn backwards.

 So here's where I actually wanna leave you today. [00:06:00] It's okay to want a lot, especially as a woman. And not everyone is built that way. And that's not a hierarchy. That's not to say that some are better than others. That's just what makes us human.

Vanessa: And while some of us do want a lot, it's just as necessary to actually rest and to enjoy what you've built instead of racing past it towards the next thing. Those two things don't have to split evenly down the middle. When balance is real, and I don't mean balance fifty-fifty like on a seesaw, but balance of just whatever it is that you're working on right now, when that is real, it doesn't ask you to pick one over the other. It just asks both things to be true at the same time.

And this show isn't going to ask you to shrink your ambition to be lovable, and it isn't going to ask you to burn out to be taken seriously either. It's going to ask you to pay attention to that flame that keeps you going, those desires that you wanna go after, all the things that you want to achieve, all while [00:07:00] also making sure that you make time for yourself.

So take a moment to think about one thing that you're building right now. At work, at home, wherever it is that shows up for you. And ask yourself honestly whether the reason underneath it all feels alive or if it feels afraid. And then ask yourself, When was the last time you actually let yourself enjoy something that you already built, without already reaching for the next thing?

And if you can, do one thing this week that has nothing to do with your growth or with your output, but has something to do with something else that brings you joy.

If today's episode felt true for you, and if the wanting and the resting are both real for you, and you've never quite figured out that support that treats them as equally valid, then that's exactly what I've built Amiga Moms coaching for the mom CEO. You can learn more about that at [00:08:00] amigamoms.com.

And if this landed for you in any way, please do share it with another mom friend or an Amiga mom who wants a lot and has also been made to feel that that's the problem, because we know that it isn't.

And of course, as always, in a world where you are free to be anything, you are always free to be mindful. 

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