התמלול המלא של Ep. 44 Eldest Daughter Syndrome Part 2 | What Happens When You Finally Heal Her in Midlife

like proof they were right to carry it in the first place. 00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:17.039 So let's start in the body, because that's where it shows up first. 00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:23.919 When you stop overfunctioning, your nervous system doesn't throw you a party, it gets nervous. 00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:29.280 For 30 to 40 years, being useful is how your body has known that you are safe. 00:02:29.599 --> 00:02:31.840 Busy meant secure. 00:02:32.080 --> 00:02:34.639 Being needed meant being wanted. 00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:42.800 So when you take the usefulness away, even for one afternoon, your system reads that empty space as a threat. 00:02:43.039 --> 00:02:44.479 That's the restlessness. 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:46.800 That's the guilt that comes out of nowhere. 00:02:47.039 --> 00:02:53.439 Sometimes it's this weird flatness, like you're sitting in your own life waiting for someone to tell you what your job is. 00:02:53.919 --> 00:02:56.879 In the last episode, I called it free fall. 00:02:57.120 --> 00:02:59.840 Who am I if I'm not doing these things? 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:03.599 And the answer for a little while is that you don't know yet. 00:03:03.759 --> 00:03:05.759 And that's supposed to happen. 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:09.759 Your body needs to recalibrate and it needs time to do that. 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:16.639 It's collecting new evidence that you can exist without a function and nothing bad happens. 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:23.840 That evidence only comes one way, which is by staying in the discomfort a little longer than feels natural. 00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:30.400 Five more minutes on the couch, letting the shoes stay by the door, letting the email sit until Monday. 00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:36.159 Every time you do that and the world keeps turning, your body files it away. 00:03:36.639 --> 00:03:38.879 You're still going to do the dishes, by the way. 00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:40.800 The shoes will get put away eventually. 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:45.599 Like I said in episode 25, the house does run better when you're on your game. 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:49.919 What changes is that you can relax while things are still undone. 00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:57.439 The dishes are in the sink, the laundry's in a pile, and your body can look at all of it and go, huh, not my issue right now. 00:03:57.599 --> 00:03:59.680 And then you go back to your coffee. 00:03:59.919 --> 00:04:01.919 And the guilt is information. 00:04:02.159 --> 00:04:07.120 It's the old calculation getting louder because it's losing its grip. 00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:09.520 It always gets louder on the way out. 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:11.840 Then there's the people. 00:04:12.159 --> 00:04:17.279 When you've been holding everything, everyone around you has organized their lives around that. 00:04:17.439 --> 00:04:25.519 Your family, your friends, your workplace, they know who remembers the birthday, who books the reservation, who fixes it when it breaks. 00:04:25.680 --> 00:04:31.920 So

when you set some of that down, they feel the weight shift because now it's landing on them. 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:35.279 People react to that in a few different ways. 00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:42.639 Some will get irritated, some will call you selfish, some will call you lazy, which might be a word you've heard before. 00:04:42.879 --> 00:04:46.879 Some will test it, they'll drop something in your lap just to see if you'll catch it. 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:52.560 And some people, and this is the one that surprised me, will step right up. 00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:56.160 The friend who always let you plan starts planning. 00:04:56.319 --> 00:05:00.639 Your partner figures out the school forms without asking where they are. 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:06.240 When one person in a system changes, everyone else has to change a little too. 00:05:06.399 --> 00:05:09.360 And that's uncomfortable for everybody. 00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:12.399 Their reaction is about the adjustment. 00:05:12.560 --> 00:05:18.480 You can let people have their feelings about it without picking that weight back up to make those feelings go away. 00:05:18.639 --> 00:05:19.839 Remember this. 00:05:20.399 --> 00:05:33.519 And if you're in that spot right now where you're setting things down and it feels messy, that is exactly why I made the put her down four guided somatic practices you can do in your car or in your bed or wherever you find 20 minutes. 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:36.000 And it's in my shop at Leslyturner.ca. 00:05:37.040 --> 00:05:41.839 The part that catches most women off guard is what shows up once there's room. 00:05:42.079 --> 00:05:46.000 When you are busy all the time, there's no room for feelings to arrive. 00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:48.319 That's kind of the point of being busy. 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:56.959 So when you slow down and the feelings you've been outrunning finally catch up, for a lot of eldest daughters, there's massive grief. 00:05:57.600 --> 00:06:01.920 Grief for the little girl who was making lunches when she should have been making mud pies. 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:05.920 Grief for all the years that went into holding things together. 00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:08.720 And sometimes it's anger, big anger. 00:06:08.879 --> 00:06:12.079 It needs to move through you and then it will settle. 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:16.240 The grief and the anger are both signs that she's finally being heard. 00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:19.120 I do have a podcast episode on why am I so angry lately? 00:06:19.439 --> 00:06:21.199 The good girl doesn't make it past 40. 00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:22.639 You do you remember that one? 00:06:22.879 --> 00:06:24.160 Now for the good part. 00:06:24.399 --> 00:06:27.040 Everything she built is still yours. 00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:34.639 And I want to spend some time with this because these skills that you developed as the eldest daughter are phenomenal. 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:42.240 She built them under pressure with no roadmap at an age when most kids

were worried about what was in their lunchbox. 00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:44.079 And she got really, really good. 00:06:44.480 --> 00:06:51.759 People spend years in therapy, leadership coaches, and coaching programs trying to learn what she figured out before she lost her baby teeth. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:55.759 The difference now is that you're the one who decides where they go. 00:06:56.959 --> 00:07:06.240 So take the fact that you can read a room the second you enter it, that 10-second scan when you walk in, who's upset, who needs something, who's about to say the wrong thing. 00:07:06.399 --> 00:07:09.759 That's genuine intuition and it's incredibly refined. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:18.000 You're picking up on tone of voice, posture, the half-second pause before someone answers, the energy in a room before anyone says a word. 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:24.319 Therapists train for years to track that much at once, and you do it while walking in with a casserole dish. 00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:27.199 It's why people tell you things they've never told anyone. 00:07:27.279 --> 00:07:30.319 It's why you know a friend's not okay from one text. 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:35.360 For most of your life, that radar has been pointed outwards at everyone else. 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:37.759 Now you get to turn it around. 00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:41.519 Walk into a room, and before you read anyone else, read you. 00:07:41.759 --> 00:07:43.199 What's my body doing right now? 00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:44.160 Am I tight? 00:07:44.399 --> 00:07:45.279 Am I bracing? 00:07:45.439 --> 00:07:47.040 Do I even want to be here? 00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:52.480 That same sensitivity that catches everyone else's shifts can catch yours. 00:07:52.800 --> 00:07:54.079 Then there's the calm. 00:07:54.240 --> 00:07:58.240 The eldest daughter is the one you call when everything falls apart because she won't panic. 00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:00.079 Think about how rare that is. 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:03.920 When most people hit a crisis, their thinking brain goes offline. 00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:05.439 Yours sharpens. 00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:11.439 You get clear, you get practical, and you know the next three steps before anyone else has stopped crying. 00:08:11.680 --> 00:08:23.279 That's a nervous system that learned to stay organized under enormous stress, and it's the exact quality we look for in ER nurses and pilots and the person you want beside you on the worst day of your life. 00:08:23.519 --> 00:08:27.759 That steadiness is a gift, and you get to choose whose crisis you bring into it. 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:29.680 You can still be the calm one. 00:08:29.839 --> 00:08:34.000 You just stop being the calm one by default for everyone who calls. 00:08:34.159 --> 00:08:36.879 And you get to bring the calm into your own life too. 00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:40.320 So when your own stuff falls apart, you're the one you'd call. 00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:43.679 Then there's the one I talked about in episode 25.

00:08:43.759 --> 00:08:51.039 When someone says it can't be done and you're already halfway through doing it, you don't really know the words can't be done. 00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:55.120 That's resourcefulness at a level most people never reach. 00:08:55.440 --> 00:08:59.440 You see a problem and your brain immediately starts building the solution. 00:08:59.600 --> 00:09:03.840 Who to call, what to move, what you can make work with what's already in the room. 00:09:04.080 --> 00:09:13.039 That's creativity, that's persistence, that's a deep belief that things can be figured out, and it's what gets businesses started, like families through hard years. 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:18.879 The only catch is that you've usually been halfway through something before asking whether it was yours to do. 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:21.039 So now you get to pause at the start. 00:09:21.279 --> 00:09:22.240 Is this mine? 00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:23.759 Do I want it? 00:09:23.919 --> 00:09:32.000 And then the best part, you get to point that same refusal to accept, can't, at the things you've decided aren't possible for you. 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:33.120 Rest. 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:34.639 Help. 00:09:34.960 --> 00:09:37.440 Wanting something just because you want it. 00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:44.960 You have found ways to override that, and now you get to do it because you know it can be done. 00:09:45.519 --> 00:09:48.240 And then the roadmap, you were the first one through. 00:09:48.399 --> 00:09:51.519 You figured it out without anybody ahead of you. 00:09:51.919 --> 00:09:54.399 Then handed the map back to everyone behind you. 00:09:54.639 --> 00:09:55.919 Do you know how hard that is? 00:09:56.080 --> 00:09:58.559 That's what founders and pioneers do. 00:09:58.799 --> 00:10:06.240 The first woman in the family to go to university or leave her hometown or start a business or say out loud that something wasn't okay. 00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:11.919 It takes vision and nerve and a tolerance for uncertainty most people never build. 00:10:12.080 --> 00:10:13.200 That's leadership. 00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:19.679 And that's probably what let you build a career and a family and maybe a business out of nothing. 00:10:19.919 --> 00:10:28.080 Now you get to go first for yourself, first on your own rest, your own wants, that dream you haven't told anybody about yet. 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:31.360 You already know how to walk a road nobody's walked before. 00:10:31.519 --> 00:10:32.879 This time it's yours. 00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:34.159 Same skills. 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:35.919 Now they belong to you. 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:40.720 No, I'm not gonna say you're not gonna pick this back up. 00:10:40.799 --> 00:10:42.320 You might not be perfect about this. 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:49.759 Probably next week, someone's in a pinch, your hand shoots up before your brain catches it, and suddenly you're organizing the whole thing again. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:50.879 That's part of it. 00:10:51.039 --> 00:10:57.679 You're rewiring something that's been running for 30 to 40 years, and no one gets that perfect on the first try. 00:10:57.919 --> 00:10:59.600 The work is noticing. 00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:04.639 Oh, I picked it up again, and then setting it back down as many times as it takes. 00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:07.679 Every time you notice, you catch it a little sooner. 00:11:07.919 --> 00:11:11.679 There's a phrase I love, not my monkey, not my circus. 00:11:11.919 --> 00:11:16.799 But the real skill is asking as a question, is this my monkey? 00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:18.559 Is this my circus? 00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:19.840 Because sometimes it is. 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:24.480 Sometimes it's your kid, your business, your marriage, and you want to be in that ring. 00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:26.879 And sometimes it's absolutely not. 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:36.399 Your whole life you've been walking into other people's circuses, straightening out the monkeys, calming down the lions, timing the trapeze so the whole show could run a little smoother. 00:11:36.639 --> 00:11:39.200 Nobody asked if you wanted a job at the circus. 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:41.039 You just showed up with a whistle. 00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:46.240 So now, before you grab the whistle, you get to ask, is this my circus? 00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:49.039 If it is, go run it beautifully. 00:11:49.200 --> 00:11:53.120 And if it isn't, you get to enjoy this show from the stands. 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:55.360 Something to try this week. 00:11:55.600 --> 00:12:01.440 The next time someone asks you for something, before you say yes, pause for one breath. 00:12:01.600 --> 00:12:02.320 Just one. 00:12:02.639 --> 00:12:05.440 In that breath, point the radar inward. 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:10.720 Drop your attention to your chest or your belly and notice what happens when you picture saying yes. 00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:14.720 Is there a lift or a little clench and a sinking? 00:12:14.960 --> 00:12:17.360 Your body will answer faster than your brain. 00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:20.159 And then ask it, is this my circus? 00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:22.000 You don't even have to say no yet. 00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:22.879 Just notice. 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:26.960 That one breath is where you start choosing instead of calculating. 00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:31.120 You spent a long time being the one who held it all. 00:12:31.279 --> 00:12:33.120 But she did an incredible job. 00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:36.960 She kept everything running with nobody ahead of her to learn from. 00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:38.879 And she's earned her rest. 00:12:39.600 --> 00:12:44.000 And you get to find out who you are when you're not holding anything at all. 00:12:44.960 --> 00:12:46.159 Sounds exciting. 00:12:46.559 --> 00:12:47.759 Thank you for being here. 00:12:47.919 --> 00:12:50.799 If you're here and listening, you're already doing this work. 00:12:51.039 --> 00:12:52.480 Until next time. 00:12:53.519 --> 00:12:56.559 If this episode landed somewhere, don't just let it sit there. 00:12:56.720 --> 00:13:00.320 That feeling you have right now, that's not a coincidence. 00:13:00.559 --> 00:13:03.600 That's your nervous system telling you something is ready to move. 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:07.840 I have a free pattern discovery call where we do exactly that. 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:13.919 We find the pattern that's actually been running the show, and I give you one tangible next step to start integrating it. 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:16.399 You can book yours at Leslie Turner.ca. 00:13:16.799 --> 00:13:21.519 And if this was the episode that made you pull over and think, wait, is she talking about me? 00:13:21.759 --> 00:13:22.799 Please subscribe. 00:13:23.039 --> 00:13:26.000 Leave a review and send it to the woman in your life who needs to hear it. 00:13:26.159 --> 00:13:28.159 You know exactly who I'm talking about. 00:13:28.399 --> 00:13:31.360 Find me on Instagram at the Leslie Turner. 00:13:31.519 --> 00:13:36.399 And until next time, the fact that you're here and listening means you're already doing this work.