Mazi Robinson: Episode Link

Mazi’s Atlanta Practice: CULTIVATE COUNSELING 

TRANSCRIPT: 

Bridgett: Welcome back to Hot Flushes and Cool Topics everybody. Today we have Mazi Robinson

on, and she is a licensed professional counselor out of Atlanta, and she really specializes in helping women just discover their true voice when they navigate all

the issues that are going on in our life right now. So welcome to the show today,

Mazi.

Mazi: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve been looking forward to chatting with y ‘all.

Bridgett: Yeah, there’s so much going on in our lives and we hear from so many women about just how kind of these transitions in this time of life just take them by surprise.

What are some things that you can address when someone comes into you to saying I

don’t know what to do right now.

Mazi: Yes, I think there are, I think midlife takes a

lot of us by surprise. Because it’s it’s something that everyone moves through

midlife. And there’s just so little information or guidance on it.

I think that is changing. I think we’re we’re seeing more and more about midlife

and perimenopause and menopause being talked about in the media which is excellent

but just traditionally speaking we we don’t really hear a lot about women and

midlife and you know if you want to dig deep for a second all the research ever

done on midlife was done on men not on women and it is a vastly different

experience for a variety of reasons. And so I think a lot of women are surprised

by the emotional changes that we experience in midlife,

the emotional fluctuations, the dark cloud that can kind of descend.

And, you know, if you’ve never had an inclination towards feeling down or depressed

or sad, it can kind of be shocking that, oh my goodness, I’m having all of these

negative thoughts, and I’m doubting myself and all of my relationships and where did

this come from? I think we can be surprised at how anxiety inducing this stage of

life is, again, for a variety of reasons. There’s internal changes going on,

but there are so many external changes in our lives, in our relationships,

in our families, both extended and immediate, in our careers. If you think about it,

In this stage of life, there is not one single area of your life that is not

impacted. Your body is impacted, your health is impacted. If you’re married,

your marriage is going to be impacted. If you have kids, your kids are rapidly

changing. And so that relationship and also that role is impacted.

If In your career, in this stage of life, there’s a lot of changes. You may feel

that you’re on the fast track, you may feel plateaued and stagnant. In your extended

family, there are going to be vast changes which can be a combination of terribly

sad and so much loss and incredibly frustrating. I’m sure we can all share stories,

nightmare stories of extended family ruptures and conflict, you know, related to the

loss of a parent settling in the estate and, and all those things. And so they’re

just, I don’t think that we’re prepared for how much just the wheels can feel like

they’re coming off the car when we hit midlife. You know, we’re, you just a lot,

there are many other life stages that get a lot more air time than, than life. And

so I think we’re better prepared for that. But yeah, I think we can be surprised

by all that we experience in this season of life.

I think when you talk about all of these external factors that are changing,

women feel so unstable. And then you factor in the fact that we have been told

that we should not put ourselves as a priority.

Colleen: – So they walk into your office, life is changing faster than they can watch it.

They don’t know what to do, but to say, oh, I need to take care of myself first

is so against what we have been trained to think. How do women start?

What do you say to them is like the first step towards feeling a little more

secure in their life?

Mazi:  – Mm -hmm, that’s a great question. And you’re right, there is

so much socialization that we’ve experienced traditionally and historically around being

nurturers, being caretakers. And again, this may be part of your natural personality

and there’s a nurture meant to it. And so,

you know, we’re just trained from an early age to read the room and take the

temperature and calibrate ourselves accordingly and anticipate needs and we are what

is modeled for us and what is often directly taught to us is that is how we show

love. And I do think women are wired to be more relational and I think we’re

socialized to be more relational. But the big question in that is how do I not

lose the me within the we, right? And so, and that question gets louder in our

minds when we hit midlife. And so then it’s shouting like, I’ve lost the me within

the we. I’ve lost the me within the we. And we can feel panicked,

we can feel anxious, we can feel sad, we can feel resentful. And so one of the

things, and I talk about this a lot with clients, one of the things that I will

encourage clients to do is let’s just start at the beginning. And It sounds so

elementary and so basic, but what do you like? Like literally make a list of what

you like and make a list of what you don’t like. I like Hershey bars,

but I do not like Three Musketeers. Like really, really small things because it is

reawakening that self -awareness of what I like and what I like and then that’s

going to build into what I need and what I want and that’s going to build into

what do I really need what needs are not being met because I think for a lot of

women they recognize I’m feeling anxious they recognize I’m feeling resentful but they

they do not have the awareness or the vocabulary to fully verbalize it’s because

of this, it’s this need that’s not being met because we have so stuffed our needs

in service to being caretakers and nurturers that I don’t even know what is not

being met but I know I’m on fire with resentment. And so really helping women to

just start at the beginning of what do you like, what do you not like? All right,

let’s move it up from there. What do you want? What do you need? And then building

that self -awareness and then from there, learning to communicate that to the people

that we love. And then from there, learning to communicate it with the people who

are capable and willing to meet those needs in our lives. Because we may have a

handful of people in our lives that we love and we’re not gonna get rid of them,

but they just aren’t willing or capable to meet those needs. So we have to then

find people who are able to meet those needs that we have identified that are not

being met.

Bridgett:  – That’s so funny, ’cause that was gonna be my question is, well, how do

you get everybody else on board in your family? Because sometimes you’ve forgotten

even what you liked. – Yes. – Because you’ve been having so many other people that

you’ve forgotten what made you happy, just like you said, the Hershey bar and the

three musketeers, you may have said, “Well, gosh, my family prefers three musketeers.”

And you forgot how much you, you’re like, “I really didn’t even like those in the

first place.” But that was, yeah. Right.

Mazi: Think of how many women you know,

women our age that you know, that never eat the pizza they like because their

family likes pepperoni sausage and mushroom or whatever and they never get the pizza

they like because it is just like it’s fine. I can do pepperoni sausage and

mushroom. It’s fine. Meanwhile, the pizza of your dreams is like artichokes and

spinach and feta cheese with the pesto sauce and you never get that pizza, you

know, because yeah, and so you So you just lose touch with what it is that you

really like and want and need and to what you were saying there at the beginning.

I do think figuring out what we like, want, and need, that can kind of be fun,

maybe even interesting. But where the hard work hits us is figuring out where we

can get those needs met. And that does often involve some surrender, surrendering of

expectations of who we want people to be in our life, surrendering expectations of

who we think they are, and that practice of radical acceptance, of you are not

capable or willing of being this person for me. And again,

that doesn’t mean that I have to, in the relationship, it just means that I have

to recalibrate to recalibrate my expectations. One of my favorite sayings is, “Are

you going to the hardware store looking for bread?” And I think a lot of women go

to the hardware store looking for bread because they’re like, “I’m such a faithful

customer to the hardware store, so don’t you want to have bread for me?” But the

hardware store doesn’t sell bread. And It doesn’t matter how many times you talk to

the manager, it doesn’t matter the ruckus you throw. They are never going to sell

bread. They sell a bunch of other things, which are handy and neat, but they’re

never gonna sell bread. And that’s the case I think with a lot of our relationships

that we think, well, if I love you, and if I meet your needs and anticipate your

And then surely you will love me back and surely you will love me in that same

way back and you’ll anticipate my needs and I’ll never have to tell you what I

need and you’ll mind read me and and and we’ll just indirectly communicate for the

record. Good luck with that fantasy because I don’t know anybody who’s ever had that

happen. Yeah. Right. Right. I think a lot of us buy into the myth that if I do

everything for you and take care of you, then you will love me back and meet my

needs. And some people, again, are just unwilling or incapable of meeting certain

needs. And we do have to have that hard reckoning with ourselves of,

am I going to the hardware store looking for bread? Am I asking for something from

this person that they are just not capable or willing to give me? And it doesn’t

mean my need is wrong, it doesn’t mean my need is too much. It means that I’m

looking in the wrong place so I have to look someplace else.

Bridgett:Right. And you were

saying, oh, not ending. It doesn’t necessarily mean ending the relationship. Right.

Right.

Mazi: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just that radical acceptance and recalibrating those

expectations of that person, of that relationship. Radical acceptance is not an easy

thing to do, especially when you’ve spent so many years thinking I’m putting my

heart and soul into this. At what point,

you know, what if you simply cannot accept that?

Colleen:  What if it’s a, you can’t accept

that the person, ’cause I know for women in midlife, we kind of step into our own

voice as we start to get older. And maybe what you accepted before,

you no longer want to accept, what would you say to women in that instance?

Mazi: – I honestly think, relationally speaking, that is the midlife transition.

It is that journey right there. It is recognizing, I accepted this previously in my

the first the the last two or three decades of my life and this behavior was fine

and I rationalized it or I didn’t even see it you know I didn’t even even register

to me that maybe this wasn’t great or healthy and but now I have on a new pair

of glasses and and I see this behavior I see this habit I see this pattern of

interaction with this person I see it differently. And it is no longer acceptable to

me. And that’s where, you know, that journey of awareness can be hard.

That journey of awareness can be hard on our relationships, because, you know, you’ve

done the waltz for two to three decades with certain people, or more than that. And

then you’re like, Whoa, I actually don’t like the waltz. And then they’re like, No,

no, no, but we’re going to keep doing the waltz. And so, you know, there’s, there’s

some headbutting there of shifting those relationships. And,

and I think there’s also loss and grief there of, you know,

the potential of, of maybe losing some connections that were built on those old

habits and patterns. And, you know, that’s just not who you are anymore but you

love that person but can that person accept that that’s not who you are anymore. So

there’s loss and grief that we have to feel as we move through that but yes

related but separate radical acceptance of this is who this person is and they are

not going to change and for me to keep beating my head up against the wall,

I’m the only one being injured. They are not being injured by me trying to get

them to be what I want them to be. What I think they would be better, you know,

being that radical acceptance, it is so, so hard, but truly it is one of the most

self -compassionate things that we can do for ourselves. And I think that’s a great

way to think about radical acceptance is it is an act of self -compassion to say I

am going to stop go with my little analogy I’m going to stop going to the hardware

store when  I’m really hungry and I’m going to go find where they actually sell bread

rather than staying hungry continuing to ask where the bread is right.

Bridgett: So if that you know that happens and depending on what the relationship is, it

could be your spouse, it could be an extended family member, it could be a sibling.

When you are doing that radical acceptance, and they might be doing a behavior that

is, I don’t know, mentally abusive, what are some things that someone can do to

say, okay, I am accepting, that’s how you are, I’m not going to change what you’re

doing to me, what can I do to protect myself.

Mazi: Yeah great question and so I think

this is you know the the natural answer to that is what are the boundaries you

need to put in place you know we often think well I’m putting boundaries in place

so that you will change but boundaries are not about the other person boundaries are

for us they are meant to protect our worth and well -being and as a result we are

often the ones that have to change when we put boundaries in place. So, you know,

about the example I always give bound, a boundary is not, you have to stop

drinking. A boundary is I’m going, it is your choice. If you drink, I would like

for you not to drink. I feel unsafe when you drink too much, but I can’t control

whether or not you drink. And so then the boundary is, so as a result, I’m going

to start driving my car to dinner.

And it is your choice if you drink, but I’m going to have my car. And so this is

why, you know, we hear a lot about boundaries, but actually boundary setting is

really hard. It takes a lot of internal work because it does require you to change

your behavior ’cause it’s not about their behavior. It is what do I need to do to

keep myself well, to keep myself grounded, to keep myself regulated,

to keep myself who I want to be. For a lot of us,

we recognize, oh my goodness, I’ve turned into this angry, resentful person who is

just hot, hot flashes,

but who’s just on fire all the time and that’s not who I am, that’s not who I

want to be and then it is up to us to figure out okay what do I need to do to

protect myself from getting to this level of escalation.

And so setting boundaries, identifying again going back to needs,

identifying what needs aren’t being met. a lot of our frustration that we feel in

relationships is because needs aren’t being met. And so what are those needs that

are not being met? I’m a big fan of having a plan. When we don’t have a plan,

we are more likely to react. And so then we’re more likely to have those reactions

that then we feel bad about or we feel guilty about or it just escalates the

pattern of the relationship and we end up in greater conflict. And so I’m a big

fan of having a plan. So if you’re going into a dinner or we’re coming up on the

holidays, if you’re going into the holidays and you know that this person that

you’re having dinner with or your family can just really activate you, they can

light a match and pour gasoline in like no time. The best thing that you can do

for yourself, you might choose to not go to the dinner and that is that is your

choice. But in the real world, you know, I think, sorry, now I’m going to go off

on a little bit of a tangent.

Bridgett & Colleen: That’s good. That’s fine.

Mazi: Yeah. I think one of my

complaints about social media and the, you know,

it’s wonderful that we have so much about mental health and self -help on social

media. That’s great. But one of my complaints is that too often the advice we see

about toxic relationships or boundaries is just leave, just leave, just leave. And

yes, there are so many relationships in which we do need to leave and the reality

is there are so many relationships in which we either cannot leave or we don’t want

to leave. And we recognize that it’s toxic. And so in the real world, you do have

to figure out, okay, if I’m not able or I don’t want to end this relationship,

then how do I survive in the relationship? And so having that plan of,

okay, what is it exactly that they do that can activate me? What are the signs

that I am starting to escalate internally? My stomach starts to clench. I get hot,

I start clenching my fist. I start to feel, my heart starts to race, like really

getting clear on what are the signs when I am starting to get flooded and triggered

by this person. And then what am I going to do? Once that starts happening,

because removing ourselves from the situation is the best thing we can do to then

lower that anxiety response. And so I’m going to say I need to go to the restroom

or I’m going to say I need to get up and check on the kids or I’m going to go

in the kitchen right and having having a plan and I think also kind of rewinding

before that having a plan of okay when I arrive I’m going to talk to this person

first I think just having a plan for these in these isolated incidences can be

extremely helpful when we are dealing with people that we find challenging and

activating. And then I can have some other thoughts, but I’ll just stop here.

Bridgett: I think that’s great though, because I think that’s such good advice. I mean,

because like you said, especially with the holidays, and, you know, some things are

unavoidable. You can’t say to somebody, I don’t want you to see that person anymore

because like you said, that’s their choice if they want to speak to that person

again.

Mazi:  So you gotta accommodate, navigate.

Colleen: Yeah. And I think along those lines,

when talking about the midlife transition, women are starting to recognize their self

-worth, which I don’t think was on the list of to -dos for a long time.

And as they’re developing a sense of self -worth. It’s so delicate and vulnerable.

How can we communicate that to other people who are used to us acting a certain

way? But now all of the sudden  we’re saying, “I deserve better. I need to set these

boundaries.” And people are like, “Whoa, who’s that? That’s not the Jane I used to

know.” How do you communicate to people that I’m in this transition and I’m setting

these boundaries for myself not to change our relationship.

Mazi: – I think one, you communicate with the people who are the safest.

And so, Brene Brown has a saying that you communicate with the people who’ve earned

the right to hear. And so you communicate with the people who’ve earned the right

to hear, who’ve earned the right to hear about your current journey, who’ve earned

the right to um what you’re realizing and what you’re noticing and seeing and

feeling for the first time or getting clear that you’re seeing and feeling and

that’s going to be a very small number of people in your life tiny and and you

can communicate to that to those you can communicate all of that to those people

but I think in general you actually don’t have to communicate um to anyone how

you’re changing. You can just let your behavior speak for itself and, you know,

can you bring the casserole that you always bring this year? No, I’m so sorry. I’m

not going to be able to do that this year. You can be nice and polite, but you

don’t have to explain why you’re not bringing the casserole. You don’t have to

explain that it actually takes eight hours to prepare that thing and you don’t have

time and you’re tired and you’re spending your night out you don’t we don’t have to

explain ourselves um one of the things that I think and we also don’t have to puff

up like I’m not going to explain myself you know like there is that that middle

ground of I can just I can give a polite no and then I can let my behavior speak

for itself and be congruent and consistent with who I’m discovering that I am

and who I want to be. One of the things that I think is important that we

remember that our inclination to over, excuse me, our inclination to explain

ourselves, it is a bit of a trauma response. You know, the thought behind that is,

well, if I explain to you why I’m not fixing the casserole, then you won’t be

disappointed and you won’t get mad at me and we won’t have conflict and so I’m

just gonna keep explaining of how I’ve been so busy and how I’m tired and my wrist

is hurting and it just takes so much time and I hope you understand I hope you

you know like that over explaining is trying to manage the other person’s reaction

and expectations so that nothing bad happens to us right like that’s kind of the

mindset behind it but we actually don’t have to do that. We don’t, we don’t have

to explain. We don’t have to manage somebody else’s expectations of us. We don’t

have to manage somebody else’s reaction. That’s their suitcase to carry. That’s their

responsibility. And we can have a polite no and, and have congruent actions after

that.

Colleen: No, it’s a complete sentence. That’s what we always say. You always say that.

And it’s, it’s such a, uh,

Bridgett:  It’s so true and, you know, it’s getting over that just

to try and explain ourselves, but the way that you just said to us how we’re just

trying to keep them from being mad at us, boy, am I guilty of that one?

Colleen: I mean,you know, quite a bit and you brought up Brene Brown and you studied the  Rising Strong. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Mazi:  Yes, I’m a big Brene Brown fan. I discovered her work maybe 12 years ago, kind of before re she really became, you know, kind of hit the stage, so to speak. And her work on shame resilience and

recognizing our own shame -based thinking, learning to identify where that comes from,

that really Digesting the truth that we are worthy not because of what we do,

but because we were born worthy of love and connection I’m just a huge fan her

rising for those who have not read the book rising strong. It is really excellent

in Uh in in recognizing learning how to Move forward after a a big fall,

and a big fall could be a big disappointment, a mistake, a failure,

a loss, but how to move forward when we have fallen in the dirt,

so to speak, and learning to identify, you know, she says, “What is the story I’m

telling myself? “What is the story I’m telling myself about the big fall, “the big

mistake about the disappointment? “What is the story that I’m telling myself about

myself and is it true? And really getting very clear on what it is that we tell

ourselves and what are the lies that we are believing? What are the facts of the

situation? Where do we need more information?

And just learning to recover from falls. It is just a wonderful, wonderful book.

So, so applicable to anyone and everyone, no matter your life stage.

– Really all of her books are really great. Daring Greatly is wonderful. I mean,

she’s really, I love when she talks about the fact that if you look for external

reasons to not have value, to not be worthy, you will find them.

Colleen: – Oh, for sure.

– You know, and I think for women, it’s so easy for us to say, well, you know,

like you said, oh, I’m not they like I need to find external reasons to validate

this. So in line with that, talk about facing change with confidence.

How can women find that confidence to face maybe some changes or setting boundaries

that they’re going to do in their life?

Mazi: Yeah, because we are going to face a lot

of change. And there are kind of two ways that you can think about facing change

and preparing your mind for facing change. There’s the one route of trying to think

differently about the circumstances that you’re facing. Like this isn’t gonna be too

bad.

Maybe it will be better than I think, et cetera, et cetera. And that can be,

that can be very helpful. but I really encourage people to think not so much about

what it is that’s in front of me, what is the change that’s in front of me,

because really we can’t necessarily control that. I encourage people to really focus

on this one very small sentence of “I can.” I can.

I can face this. This may be hard and this may be not fun at all and I can.

This is going to be a stressful season and I can and really cultivating that belief

of and I can like two things can be true. This this is going to be brutal and

I’m dreading it and it’s going to be stressful and I feel like it’s not going to

be fun and I can. Both of those things can be true. And so I think it’s really

important to cultivate that self -efficacy, that belief of I can, because we don’t

actually know if it’s going to be okay, you know? And we can tell ourselves it’s

going to be okay, but we don’t actually know. It could actually be horrible, right?

Like it could be. And so you’re putting how you handle it based on the outcome

which is most likely out of your control and so instead you’re focusing on what I

can control. I can’t control this change. I can’t control the news the doctor’s

going to give me. I can’t control the prognosis. I can’t even control how

Thanksgiving’s going to go but I can. I can do anything for two hours.

I can show up for another doctor’s appointment. I can’t,

right. And so I think developing that I can voice and that I can belief is so so

important in helping us move through change. And we don’t develop that voice and

that belief as a way of negating how hard it is over here. It is holding up both

things. This is hard and I can. That’s,

you know, just whatever you have control of, which isn’t much, you know, or, you

know, it isn’t a lot that you have control of.

Bridgett: Another thing that I know that you

touch on, um, and we hear from a lot of women at this time of life is

friendships, especially if you’ve moved, especially if you’ve gone through a divorce

or some kind of our spouses, your kids left and all their friends left. Yeah.

You’re not making friends with kids at schools, parents parents anymore. What are

some advice? Because we do hear that a lot from people about friendships.

Mazi:  Oh yeah adult friendship is challenging. And again, this is one of those things that we no one ever prepares us for. No one ever prepares us that when you get into midlife

or, you know, friendships are going to be harder to come by, harder to form.

There’s no forewarning of that, but adult friendship is hard for all the reasons

that y ‘all just said, people move, people’s roles change,

life stages change, et cetera. I think one of the things when it comes to adult

friendship we have to be so protective of is that comparison trap because it is so

easy to go media and to seek to feel like every female you know is on a girl’s

trip but you and it is so easy to fall down that spiral and to within minutes to

feel alone and lonely and unwanted and rejected and so I think we have to be very

careful about that comparison trap. I think we have to remember that just in this

stage of life, we probably aren’t going to have as large of a social network,

as large of a social group as we did in our 20s.

That just is one of the things that happens over time. Our friendship circles shrink

for a variety of reasons. People move, people get busy, people have other

responsibilities, et cetera, et cetera. But a shrinking friendship circle does not

necessarily mean that you are doing something wrong or that there’s something wrong

with you. I think also we do have to remember that we have to show up,

you know? And this kind of goes against the grain of what we were saying earlier

of like boundaries and focus on yourself and your personal growth and what works for

you. But we do have to show up, right? We have to show up sometimes, even when we

don’t want to show up. Like if you want people to come to your birthday dinner,

then you need to go to other people’s birthday dinners, even if you’re tired. And

it’s that fine line of, yes, I have to take care of myself,

but if I want relationships, relationships require investment.

And so that means that I have to invest. And I have to put myself out there and

I have to be willing to be vulnerable, which means I might have to show up to

places where I don’t know a lot of people or I don’t know everyone that’s going to

be there super well. But I’m going to go in with the mindset of I want to

connect. And this, you know, and so, but it is, it’s very, very, it’s very

challenging. It’s very challenging. And again, no one ever, no one ever warns us.

Colleen: One way women connect can connect is like is going on retreats. And I know you

talk about retreats. Can you talk about the retreats that you do and how women can

find out more information?

Mazi:  – Yes, so I over the past several years have held weekend

retreats focused on really digesting and believing and securing your self -worth,

securing that belief in your self -worth, learning about shame and learning about

shame resilience, learning what are those negative thoughts and what are the lies in

those negative thoughts? What is the truth that I need to remember? What is the

truth that I need to digest? What is the truth that I need to discover that maybe

no one ever taught me? And these retreats are so great.

They’re a Saturday and a Sunday and we just kind of walk through a whole journey

of recognizing what is the origin of some of the negative beliefs in our lives and

what is the life that I want to create that I am ready to step into.

I also speak at a lot of retreats that other people are holding churches and

women’s organizations and corporate groups and so forth and so on, but I think

retreats are a wonderful tool for self -care of just that two days,

three days, if it’s a really long retreat of investing in yourself, really kind of

blocking everything else out and spending time learning and growing and unpacking the

suitcases that you have been carrying along, retreats are just so good for the soul,

so good for the spirit

Bridgett: . – And they’re on your website?

Mazi:  – Yes, they are on my

website, yes. – Yeah, and you can meet made other people there.

Colleen:  – Yeah,

exactly, which we were just talking about connecting. So we’ll have the links in our

show notes on ways to get in touch with you. But Maisie Robinson, thank you so

much for coming on today and talking about the midlife transition and all that comes

with it, we appreciate it.

Mazi:  – Yes, thank you so much for having me.