Why the Eldest Daughter Always Says Yes | Ep322

Why the Eldest Daughter Always Says Yes | Ep322

[00:00:00]

Vanessa: If you were the oldest girl in your family, the one who watched the little ones and set the example before anyone asked, There's a good chance you're still saying yes to things before the other person even finishes the question. 

And for a lot of us, it doesn't just stop at a yes. We say yes, and then we give it 110%, as if 90% wouldn't count at all.

I didn't fully see that in myself until looking at pictures of an amazing night that I had helped plan, and what I noticed on my own face had nothing to do with how that night went. Let's get into it. 

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 quietly set aside. Here we go. 

Hello and welcome to episode [00:01:00] 322 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 watching this on YouTube, you may notice that my face here is a little more done up than usual for a podcast recording.

And that is because last night was the third annual Latino Mental Health Association of New Jersey's gala. And I came home so happy and so tired, and knew that I had to record this podcast, that I just left the glam on. And hopefully my face doesn't pay for it later.

Today we're talking about something that I see in so many of us, especially in those of us that grew up in household as the eldest daughter. And we're gonna explore today why is it that we say yes to everything and what it looks like when a season of giving that much is ready to close.

So I wanna explain why last night felt so different for me. And to do that, I have to go back a few years to a stretch of my life when I said [00:02:00] yes to almost everything that came my way.

It started long before a board seat, and that was when I was working towards licensure to become a therapist. We spend so many years earning our hours. And a lot of that work pays much less, and I mean, like, less than a quarter of what a regular session costs. But we do it because that's how the path works, and because many of us love the work and are committed to this work.

But that also teaches many therapists early on that this work is more giving and being paid like a professional comes later, if at all. Which is its own separate thing.

And then the pandemic hit. And like a lot of us, I suddenly had all of this free time that I didn't typically have. So naturally I filled every bit of it, right?

I was on the executive board for the College of New Jersey's Alumni Association. I was on the board for the Lupe Fund Program of New [00:03:00] Jersey. On the board for the 100 Hispanic Women of New Jersey. And I've spent six years on the executive board of the Latino Mental Health Association of New Jersey.

And that was only on the volunteer side, because until the end of 2021, I was still working full-time as a school counselor and then seeing private practice clients after school let out. Then at the end of 2021, I left my 18-year career in education to go into entrepreneurship full-time.

And in 2023, I helped build the Latinx Practice Collective, which is a whole nother business on top of Free to Be Mindful, and on top of Amiga Moms, where I was holding monthly events for moms as it was.

So when I say I was busy, I mean all the way around. My calendar had its own calendar. 

And I'm still proud of what we built in each and every one of those spaces. Giving back to the communities that helped shape me will always be a part of who I am. Looking back though, I've started asking a question I never slowed down enough to ask back [00:04:00] then, and that is: What was all of that filling? 

Because for me, a big part of that answer goes back to being the eldest daughter in a Dominican household, and the only girl on top of that.

And that second part makes a difference. In so many of our families, the girl is the one who's expected to help at home and set the example. And when she's also the oldest, she's basically second in command before she's old enough to even know what that means.

And I was a mature one growing up, and I had to behave so that my younger brothers had someone to follow. And I was the one who got handed my brothers to watch without anybody asking if I even wanted to. Nobody ever had to tell me to raise my hand, since raising it was already part of who I was.

And then there's the culture piece around it all. In a lot of our families, helping out is how we show respect and how we show love. And I wanna make this clear. I am proud of that part of how I [00:05:00] was raised. And that also means that saying yes felt like part of who I was before it ever felt like a decision.

So for so many of us, it was never just about saying yes. It's also saying yes and then giving it 110%, as if 90% doesn't count at all. We agree to bring dessert to the potluck and then find ourselves baking it from scratch at 11 o'clock at night, or take one small piece of a project and somehow end up running the whole thing.

Part of that does come from being the oldest, where being dependable is how we kind of earned our place. So doing anything halfway can feel like letting everybody down. But the other part of it comes from the work ethic so many of us were raised with. Watching our parents work hard so that we could have more can make anything less than our best feel like we're just wasting what it is that they gave us.

And that same work ethic has built so much of [00:06:00] what I'm proud of. The problem that shows up is that every yes gets that same 110%, and then there's nothing left to go around for us to take home, and something always ends up getting the leftovers, if anything is left at all, and that's usually us.

If that sounds a little too familiar, this is a big part of what I work on in my coaching for high-achieving women. We look at where all of this 110% is coming from, going to, and then decide together which commitments have actually earned it. And you can find more details on that in the show notes. 

So back to my story. I didn't really see what this pattern was costing me until 2024, Which is when my miracle baby was born, in the same year that I was president of the Latino Mental Health Association of New Jersey, which is when we were also planning our very first gala.

And I stayed fully committed because that's just who I am, and [00:07:00] I'm proud of what we built together. But then I think of it like, wow, I was only four months postpartum when that gala took place.

And when I look at pictures from that night now, I can see on my face that it was a lot. 

And part of what I see is that I never gave myself the time to put my own health first. I had my daughter, and I was well into my 40s, which I wouldn't trade for anything in the world, of course. And it also means that my body wasn't running on the bounce back schedule that everyone seems to expect. The bounce back is hard enough at any age when your plate is full, but of course, the older we get, the more time and care it asks for And I don't only mean the physical part either.

There's a social and emotional bounce back after a baby too that rarely gets talked about out loud. And somewhere in the season of that all, I realized that every yes I gave to one thing was a no that I was giving to something else.

[00:08:00] And with a baby at home, and a tween, and a husband, and a dog, and my businesses growing, I couldn't keep giving that much of myself to everything. And admitting that was harder than probably any of the work itself.

And this comes up with a lot of women I work with, especially the ones who were the responsible ones growing up. We tend to treat our capacity like a fixed number that we should be able to hit forever. When what we have to realize is that we all move through seasons. Some seasons let us give a lot to our communities, and then others ask us to give mostly to the people under our own roof. And neither one says anything about how generous or committed we are.

When I'm helping a client figure out whether a season might be closing, there are always two questions that I come back to, and that is:

" Would you still say yes to this if someone asks you for the first time today?"

And "is [00:09:00] there someone coming up behind you who's ready for the seat that you've been holding?"

Stepping back from things that you love and care for and enjoy doing can bring up guilt sometimes, especially from a community that gave us so much.

And what helped me was remembering that a seat I leave open is a seat that then someone else gets to fill. Closing a season well can look like helping the next person get settled and finding a new way to stay connected that fits the season we're in now.

I'm still part of the LMHANJ community today, only in a different seat. And I have full trust that the doors we open together stay open for whomever it is that comes next.

Which brings me back to last night and the lashes that are still hanging on here. This time I went to the gala as a guest. I got to cheer for the people putting in the hard [00:10:00] work this year, and I got to fully enjoy the night for what it was. And it felt so different from that first gala two years ago, or the one last year when I was sitting as the past president.

And as high-achieving women, we live so much in the do, do, do that we forget we're allowed to take moments back, and that we're allowed to also enjoy them without being the one in charge of making them happen.

Getting to celebrate something that I helped start from my seat at a table instead of the one up front or behind the scenes is something that I'd love for more of us to give ourselves, and it's a big part of the why I wanted to record this episode, makeup and all, today.

So I wanted to take a few minutes to reflect together. Wherever you are, whether you're in the car or folding laundry, let this be a few minutes that's only for you.

And start by picturing your calendar for this week. Everything that's happening at work, [00:11:00] everything that's happening at home, your kids' schedules, anything that you volunteered your time for.

And notice which commitments feel light when you picture them, and then which ones feel heavy. And focus in on some of those heavy ones. And ask yourself, if someone asked you to take this on for the first time today, knowing everything that you know now, would you still say yes? Think about where your first yes came from.

Maybe it was being the oldest girl in your family or watching someone you love give everything they had without ever asking for anything back. And notice what came to mind, and notice how it feels to recognize that part of your story.

Now picture that same commitment done at 90% instead of 110. Picture that email a little shorter or the [00:12:00] dessert that came from the bakery. Notice whether anything actually falls apart or whether the only person who would notice is you

And if there's a season in your life that's ready to close, picture who might be ready to take that seat. Picture them in the actual seat doing it their own way, and notice what it feels like to trust that the door you opened stays open.

And lastly, think about the one thing you used to run that you could come back to someday as a guest, where all you have to do is just sit back, relax, and enjoy it.

As for me, as soon as I get done recording and get home, I'm ready to take this makeup off. And while I'll be doing that 100%, because skincare is key, ladies, [00:13:00] especially after 40, I'll also be relaxing at 100%, but dinner might come at 85, if at all. Getting Uber Eats has to count for something, right?

Thanks so much for tuning in. If you think this episode could help a friend or an Amiga mom, be sure to share it with them.

And as always, remember, in a world where you are free to be anything, you are always free to be mindful. Catch you next time. 

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