Be Fearless After 40: Never Good Enough
No Drama Holidays, Episode 2
Host: Jacquie Edwards
[00:00] You've been up since six. You've cooked, cleaned, wrapped, driven, hosted, and smiled. You've fallen to bed at midnight, and the last thing that goes through your head isn't "I did an amazing job today." It's the gravy. That gravy was a little bit thin. And your mother-in-law? She noticed. 18 hours of work and your brain hands you the one thing that wasn't fucking perfect. Welcome to Never Good Enough. Hello, my fearless friend, and welcome back to Be Fearless After 40. I'm Jacquie and this is episode two of No Drama Holidays. Last time we talked about why saying no is hard. Today I want to talk about three feelings that come up for so many of us at this time of year. Whether it's Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, New Year's, whatever. They show up like clockwork. Never good enough. Always exhausted and invisible. Let's go there. Quick thing first, if you haven't got my free guide yet, How to Say No to Things You Don't Want to Do, the Holiday Edition.
[01:16] It's at befearlessafter40.com/holiday. I'm sharing a piece of it with you right here, right now. So picture it. The table looks like a magazine spread. And you are over there apologizing for the potatoes. You spend weeks finding the perfect gift. And then you spend the unwrapping of it, watching their face, waiting for the flicker that says you got it wrong.
[01:43] Or your mother-in-law walks into your kitchen and says, "Oh, you're doing it that way this year." Seven words and the whole day tastes different. Here's the thing about good enough. It is a moving target. You hit it and someone moves it. You do more, the bar goes up. You do everything and they notice the one thing you didn't do. It's fucking exhausting. Which brings me on to the next one. Always exhausted. I don't mean tired. Tired gets fixed by a nap. I mean the bone-deep kind. The kind where you sit down in the car after a family gathering and you can't make yourself turn the key for a minute. Because it's not just the cooking and the driving. It is that fucking list. The one running in your head at three in the morning. Aunt Carol's gluten thing. The teacher's gifts. Who can't sit next to who.
[02:40] Whether anyone actually ordered the turkey. Is it coming? Is it not? Who knows? Or the card for your partner's mother, which he'll write because of course he won't, whether your sister's okay because she sounded off on the phone, that list. Nobody else in your house has that list. They don't need one because they have you. And here's the part that really stings. If you do all of it well, it looks so effortless. So nobody notices. The only time your work becomes visible is when it's missing. When the stuffing doesn't appear, when the cards don't go out, then everyone notices. Who was supposed to do that? You were. You always are. At the end of the night, someone says, "Thanks, honey. Great dinner." While you're scraping plates and part of you wants to scream. Do you have any fucking idea what that took? But you don't.
[03:36] You say, "Oh, it was nothing." It was nothing. It was weeks of your life. And let's be honest, this isn't just a December thing. It's the house is always a mess and no one helps. The kids who never notice that you do everything to make their lives easier. The co-worker who can't do a single thing without you. The holidays just make it impossible to ignore.
[04:03] So, let me ask you, who sees you? Who asks how you are and actually waits for the answer? Now, I'm going to be your best friend for a second here, the one who won't let you change the subject. What do you need this holiday? Not want, need. I don't think it's the better gravy. Maybe it's someone saying, "Sit down, I've got this." Maybe it's an hour where nobody needs a single thing from you. Maybe it's permission to just stop. So why do so many of us feel like we're never good enough, no matter how much we do? It's not because you're broken. It's because you were taught that your worth is measured by what you give. And that is patriarchy in a sentence. For centuries, a good woman was a useful woman, a giving woman. Her value was in the meal she made, the home she kept, the people she looked after, and her reward, their happiness, not hers.
[05:03] Theirs. For a lot of us, religion hammered that home. Now I'm not knocking anyone's faith. Faith can be a huge source of comfort and strength. But many of us grew up with a version of it that held up self-sacrificing as the highest thing a woman could be. The selfless mother, the woman who gives and gives and never asks. Whether it came from the pulpit, the temple, the mosque or just Grandma quoting scripture at you, the message landed. Wanting things for yourself is selfish and selfish is sin. And then there's what we watched. Our own mothers. Grandmothers.
[05:42] Aunts. Christmas in my house growing up was a production. My mom did everything: the shopping, the wrapping, the cooking, the cleaning. For weeks, she was pretty fucking grumpy about it too, let me tell you. She didn't always yell, she just became the martyr. So I tiptoed around trying to help without ever being told what to do. And nothing I did was good enough. My mom was a professional martyr. She wanted help, but she'd never ask for it because we're taught that asking for help is a weakness especially as mothers. So instead she got more and more worn out and waited for someone to notice.
[06:23] And here's what perfectionism really is, underneath. It isn't about the gravy, it's about earning your place. If it's perfect, nobody can criticize you. If nobody criticizes you, you're safe, you belong. That's not a character flaw, that's a survival strategy you learned as a little girl. And you don't need it anymore.
[06:48] Imagine, it's the holidays and you've done half of what you normally do, half. The table's fine, nobody died, and you feel good, rested, you're actually in the room laughing instead of hovering by the oven, and when someone needs something, you hear yourself say, "It's in the fridge, help yourself," and you don't feel guilty, not even a little. I know that sounds impossible right now, it did to me too. But saying no without the guilt is a skill and you can learn it. Here's where it starts. It's in the first step of my free guide. Think of something you genuinely love to do. Not something you should do. And notice how that "yes" feels in your body. Does it feel warm, light, maybe a little fizz of excitement? How does that thing you genuinely love to do feel in your body?
[07:51] And now think of something you've said yes to that you're secretly dreading. Feel the difference. That clench in your guts, the tightening of your throat.
[08:07] The raising of your shoulders. That's your body saying no long before your mouth does. Your body has been telling you the truth this whole time. You have just been trained not to listen. Now that's step one. The other four steps plus the exact words to say no kindly and firmly are in my free guide, How to Say No to Things You Don't Want to Do, Holiday Edition. Imagine walking into this holiday season with those words already in your pocket. Pause this, grab it now. befearlessafter40.com/holiday. Takes 30 seconds and it's free. And if you're hearing yourself in all this, then never good enough, the doing everything and then resenting everyone. There's a name for that pattern too. You rush in to rescue everyone. You end up overwhelmed because your own shit never gets done. Then you get angry because nobody ever helps you and round and round it goes.
[09:12] I did it everywhere, not just at Christmas, in my marriage over money, over a barking dog, and a furious neighbour, for more than a fucking year. I tell all those stories in the course because once you see the pattern in my life you'll start seeing it in yours. It's called the drama triangle and once you see it you can't unsee it. That's what my course, Drama Free Relationships, is for. Four short video lessons, a workbook for each, and a simple tool for the guilt that hits when you finally stop rescuing everyone. It's $27 and you can finish it before the holidays even start. You've spent years making everyone else's season magical. Spend $27 and one evening on yours. Go to befearlessafter40.com/dramafree.
[09:59] Now, next episode. Three Christmases in One Day: the in-laws, the driving, the side of the family that goes quiet on you if you don't show up, doing the right thing, and why you feel like you owe everyone a piece of you. Until then, my fearless friend, notice the one thing your brain tells you wasn't perfect, and then tell it to fuck right off. Lots of love. I'm Jacquie. This is Be Fearless After 40. Stay bold, stay brave, and keep breaking the rules. Talk to you next time.
