Are you feeling like you're navigating uncharted territory as a step-parent without any children of your own? I'm not a step-parent myself, but I've learned from my clients that it can be complicated with its own set of challenges and emotions.
Join me today as I interview Gail Miller, who is a life coach, maternal fetal medicine physician, TEDx speaker, founder of Path Onward Life Coaching, and step-parent.
Gail's journey of acceptance as a childless woman and step-parent is a testament of resilience and courage, a saga that will move, inspire, and empower you to challenge societal norms and live a fulfilling life despite some unique struggles.
Listen to this episode to find out:
Where to find Gail:
Gail's free mini course for childless women: Take Charge of Your Health Conversations
Find Gail on Instagram @childlesspathonward
Where to find Sheri:
Instagram: @sherijohnsoncoaching
Website: sherijohnson.ca
If you want to create your best life in 2024, even without kids, download my free guide. You'll discover how to find purpose, joy and fulfillment and what might be standing in the way.
Click here for your free guide
Are you feeling like you're navigating uncharted territory as a step-parent without any children of your own? I'm not a step-parent myself, but I've learned from my clients that it can be complicated with its own set of challenges and emotions.
Join me today as I interview Gail Miller, who is a life coach, maternal fetal medicine physician, TEDx speaker, founder of Path Onward Life Coaching, and step-parent.
Gail's journey of acceptance as a childless woman and step-parent is a testament of resilience and courage, a saga that will move, inspire, and empower you to challenge societal norms and live a fulfilling life despite some unique struggles.
Listen to this episode to find out:
Where to find Gail:
Gail's free mini course for childless women: Take Charge of Your Health Conversations
Find Gail on Instagram @childlesspathonward
Where to find Sheri:
Instagram: @sherijohnsoncoaching
Website: sherijohnson.ca
If you want to create your best life in 2024, even without kids, download my free guide. You'll discover how to find purpose, joy and fulfillment and what might be standing in the way.
Click here for your free guide
Today on the podcast, I invited Gail Miller to join me.
Sheri Johnson:Gail is. She's a life coach. She's also a maternal fetal medicine physician, which I was really curious to chat about how she manages that as a childless woman. She's also a TEDx speaker. She is the founder of Path Onward Life Coaching, which empowers women who are childless not by choice to live fulfilling and purpose-filled lives.
Sheri Johnson:One of the reasons I wanted to bring Gail on the podcast was because she is a step-parent, so I wanted to bring that unique perspective and get an understanding of her own experience as a step-parent, but also some of the tips that she has for helping step-parents in her coaching business to work their way through that and some of the unique aspects of that particular type of childless journey. This was a really enlightening conversation for me, even as a woman who is not a step-parent. There were lots of great things that we chatted about that would be helpful for both step-parents and and childless women who are not. So stick with me and let's get into it. Hi, I'm Sherri Johnson, and you are about to discover how to embrace your life as a childless woman who wanted to have a family and never could. This is where we combine mindset-shifting tools with practical tips so you can break free of outdated societal norms that condition us all to believe that women without kids just don't measure up to the moms. It's where we take action on processing grief and accelerating the healing journey. So you can feel free. When childless women awaken their self-worth, they transform from hopeless and inadequate to worthy, accepting and purposeful. Think of this podcast as your weekly dose of light bulb moments that will shift your perspective as a childless woman, about yourself, about your innate power to change yourself, your future and maybe from the world we live in. If that's what you want, then keep on listening.
Sheri Johnson:Welcome back to another episode on the Awakening Worth podcast. I have another special guest with me today. Her name is Gail Miller, and Gail is a really. She has a unique combination of background and skills. She's a life coach. She's also a maternal fetal medicine physician, which we're going to talk a bit about, and a TEDx speaker. She brings a unique combination to coaching in the childless world. She's also a stepmom. We're going to get into all of that, the unique challenges of being a stepmom. We're also going to talk a little bit about healthcare, which I'm excited about, and how to take charge of that conversation. I want to really give you a warm welcome, gail. Welcome to the show. I'm really glad to have you.
Gail Miller:Thank you, I'm really excited to be here. Yeah, thanks so much for having me here.
Sheri Johnson:Oh, it's my pleasure. On my show, we like to dive into the deep stuff early. I'm going to start by asking you to just share a little bit about your story and how you came to be doing what you're doing.
Gail Miller:Sure, I think many of us in the childless not by choice community we've dreamed of this since childhood. Not everybody. For some it comes late that desire, but for many of us and I was definitely one of those people who, since I was a child, just that was my plan for life it never even occurred to me that it might not happen. As part of that, my view of my life was I would be a mom with a partner Over time. It was one of those things where it just sort of happened All of a sudden. It was like wait a minute, I'm getting older and I haven't found the person I want to spend my life with. I decided at that point okay, let me think about being a single mom. I very much wanted that, but this was several years ago, and through coaching and through therapy I have gained a confidence that I didn't have. Then. I allowed one of my parents to. I would have been treated like I was dead as a single mom. I had a boss who was extremely conservative and I would have been fired. It was just one of those perfect storm, if you will, where I didn't have the confidence to be able to say I will do this on my own. I don't care what anybody else thinks. Now I'm at that point in my life but it's a little late. I had never been fired from a job. I just couldn't imagine how do I proceed with life like this. I didn't really give it up. I put it on the back burner and I ended up changing jobs and went to one where I couldn't even fit in a single doctor's appointment, much less the multiple ones I would have needed, because I also knew, having gone down the road thinking I would become a mom on my own, I knew I would. I had fertility issues Again, the fear of losing family. I just let that all affect me and gave up or just said, okay, this isn't going to happen, this is not what's meant to be. I thought I had accepted it and then I met the right person, but I was older in life and never brought it up before we got married, because I just I thought I accepted this, I'm fine with this, and we got married and it was like a switch that got flipped and it was just one of those things. It was kind of like, okay, this is the natural progression I had always imagined for me and now I have this perfect person and well for me, perfect and I want to have my own children. He had three. He was at the end of the teenage years and now I'm bringing this up and that's not what he wanted. Plus, we would have had to go through IVF and it wasn't happening, naturally. So I was like, okay, I have to give this up, but that it was just this. It was like a wave that crashed over me when I finally was like I haven't accepted this, when I finally realized, okay, I have to move my focus from this loss to be able to enjoy the life that I do have.
Gail Miller:So I worked with both a coach and a therapist, and neither was childless my therapist, who I loved. I worked with her for other things, but she said to me at one point oh, I know how you feel because I had a high-risk pregnancy, and it was like, no, you don't know how you feel. Oh, I feel you went home with two children. I did not. While I don't minimize the grief she had, because it wasn't the pregnancy she had planned, they're not the same, they're not worse or less. Where I got the most value in terms of working through this was with my coaching, but it still wasn't. My coach wasn't childless, she didn't, just doesn't get. And that's when I kind of looked around and I'm googling things and that's when I learned there's a term childless, not my choice never heard of it before and I decided this is what I want to do. I want to help other women get to this point that I'm at where it's not that I don't grieve, it's not that I don't feel sad, but instead of that being my whole world, now that grief and the sadness it's a part of my world and I get to appreciate the wonderful things I have in my life. And that's when I decided this is what I want to do. I want to help other women get to this same point. And so I do still so.
Gail Miller:I am a maternal field medicine physician, so my patients are women who have high risk pregnancies, which I know is ironic I guess that's one word to describe it. I work part-time. Still I still do that. People ask me do you have a hard time with that? And until somebody first asked me that, it didn't even, frankly, dawn on me Interesting that this way. And I never got triggered at work. And maybe it's because I compartmentalize, I don't know, but I never get triggered, with the exception when people get angry and they find out the gender and they get angry because it's a boy and they wanted a girl, a vice versa. And I realize there are cultural aspects to that, so I'm not minimizing that but that's when I have to step out of a room Because I'm like, yeah, there's thousands and thousands of people who would kill to have whatever a healthy child, whether boy or girl, and so that is a trigger for me to be quite honest, I'm not surprised that.
Sheri Johnson:That would be a trigger, for sure. Yeah, there's so many things I want to ask you about. I'm not even sure where this starts your journey is. There's so many different complexities wrapped up in there. Can we start with the first thing that you talked about, which was wanting to go ahead and try to have a child on your own? It's one way of becoming a childless woman by circumstance is this idea of being a single woman, but I don't know if I've ever talked on the podcast about being in the position where you're ready to move forward and have a child on your own and the people around you just wouldn't accept it. That's unique. Well, I don't think it is very unique. I'm sure there are lots of other women out there who experienced that. Can you maybe expand on what you know now? So, in case there's a listener who's going through that at the moment or who's just sort of passed through that, as the person you are now, what would you say to your younger self?
Gail Miller:I would tell my younger self you have taken care of yourself by yourself your whole life, which I did. I don't know if others would have the same situation. It was a dysfunctional relationship, clearly, because instead of having a parent who would support me, this was a parent who would treat me like I was dead. So there was always a dysfunctional aspect to that relationship, and so that's what I would remind. Tell myself my younger self you have had to take care of yourself. Because of this dysfunctional relationship, you didn't have the parent you should have had, that you wanted to have, so you can do this on your own. I didn't tell myself that then.
Sheri Johnson:Now I wish I had, but that is what I would say to myself I wish I had that statement, I think is one that so many of us say like. We look back on our past and think, oh, I wish I would have done this. I wish I would have frozen my eggs or I wish I would have. Maybe I should have stayed with that guy that I broke up with, or maybe we could have made it work. There's so much going back through the past and wishing things had been different. It doesn't serve us, but I think it's only natural to do that until that's part of the grieving process, I guess.
Gail Miller:Yes, the what it could have, should have, is that happens. I think it happens to all of us and when it happens it doesn't serve me to be like pretend it didn't. You have to let that grief let it go in terms of not let it go, push it away, but feel it and then I'm like, okay, I didn't, then I can't change it. So now I've felt that pain, I've let myself grieve and I'm going to move forward with it.
Sheri Johnson:Yeah, and I did the best I could, given what I knew at the time and what skills I had at the time, and what knowledge I had of myself at the time as well, exactly. It floors me, though, that there are still people in the world who would actually fire you for doing that. That, to me, has no. Your ability to do your job has no bearing on whether you are a single mom or not. Yeah, for someone to like gosh, it's none of his or her business.
Gail Miller:Yeah, I mean I will have to say it was several years ago, but there are. I still hear stories from others that it's not outright where he would have outright, at that point he would have been able to fire me for you know, unprofessional behavior, I guess, or. But women get pushed out. It's not a direct. You're fired because you're pregnant and you're single. It's making their lives miserable.
Sheri Johnson:Yeah, and as much as I get fired up about that, there's also part of me that says I'm like if I were in that situation and I went back to tell myself something, it would be trust that all of that is going to be okay, no matter what your. You know the choice that you make for yourself is the most important and allow you know, trust that everything else is going to work itself out. If you get fired from that job, you're going to find another, better one that has a boss that supports you. Usually that that does happen. You know one door closes and another one opens, and it's usually better.
Gail Miller:Yes, yeah, exactly. I was young in my career then, before I realized that's the case.
Sheri Johnson:Yeah, so you were already a doctor at that point? I was, yeah, different parts of the states react differently to that. I would expect. Different parts of the world. That's heartbreaking. So the next thing that I wanted to ask you about was when you met your husband, your partner, I don't know. I think that's another piece that people really relate to. One of the reasons I wanted to bring you on was because you're a step parent, but I think it's also quite common for a person to meet another person who doesn't want to have kids, and I think something that's really common that comes up among childless women who want it, who were in that scenario, is to present or to not get support from that person for what they're grieving. Can you talk a bit about how you dealt with that, or whether you even felt that?
Gail Miller:Oh, absolutely, yes, I can talk about that. And yes, the answer to that is yes, there's resentment that I had to work through, we had to work through together and, as I said, I didn't even bring it up with him before we got married because I was like, yeah, I've accepted it, I'm over it. So, when it's not like it was something where we talked about it before and let's see, or this came out of the blue for him.
Gail Miller:Like I sit down and like I want to have a family, I want to have my own children. And there was part of me was resentful and part of me felt guilty for being resentful because, again, we didn't have this agreement beforehand and it was sort of an unspoken thing like that. We wouldn't not even talk about it, not that it was not something we would talk about, but it's not something to bring up because I just really had convinced myself I'm fine with this. So I had to work through that resentment and the guilt for feeling resentment. And he is a therapist who didn't get what this grief is and he was one of the people who would say to me you know, you need to get over it. Until he had a client, and I don't know what the conversation was. He came home from that session that night and it's like I'm so sorry, it's like I never really heard what you said until I heard my client say it and he actually because in my TEDx talk was that was part of the story and the very first time I practiced it in front of him, he, after all these years, apologized again.
Gail Miller:I just didn't recognize the pain that this caused you and because his assumption also, like most people was, I would see his kids as mine, and people make that assumption that all step moms should feel like their step kids are their own kids, and the reality is some do, but the research I've read is like the majority don't, and it also there's so many factors that that affect that. You know how old the kids were, the relationship with their mom, like all everything. There's so many factors. I do happen to be incredibly fortunate that my husband and his ex-wife had an amicable divorce. They never, ever, let their issues affect their kids.
Sheri Johnson:So in.
Gail Miller:Yeah, so we have a good relationship. So I'm incredibly fortunate because that's not the case for all people who have remarried and there's a divorce or you know, and now that they're not teenagers, I have a positive relationship with them and they're not my kids. They'll never be they. I'll never have that bond that they have with their mom, just like they don't have the bond with their stepdad like they have with their dad. That's just human nature. That's part of the issue was his assumption that, well, you don't need to have your own kids, you have, we have kids and like, but they're not my kids, they're not our kids.
Sheri Johnson:I want to go deeper with that because I think that's true and actually I have a question before we go deeper. You said something about some of the factors that impact your relationship with the kids your stepkids, and age is one of those things, and I made that assumption, but I want to validate that. So my assumption was that the younger the children, the stronger the bond you would create with them. Other all things aside, the other factors Do you think that's true that it's easier to create a bond if they are younger than when they are, say, teenagers?
Gail Miller:Not necessarily because the kids go through this, this even when they're very young, this they feel torn even in the best of circumstances, where you know the parents and the step parents get along. There's still that natural. This is my mom and like I don't want to make her feel badly because I'm close with others, so that plays a role no matter what the light bulb just went off there or went on.
Sheri Johnson:Yes, of course I mean I've watched that happen and I just hadn't sat down to think about it. But that's so true, makes a lot of sense.
Gail Miller:And it's also different. There is research I can't give you the data, here's the title and here's where to look for it but there is research talking about showing the difference to and how step kids relate to a step dad versus relating to a step mom. It is more likely that they will have a positive relationship with the step dad than with a step mom and I think it's in large part because of society, the view of the evil step mother, even if that word isn't used. You hear the word step mother and so many people automatically think evil.
Sheri Johnson:Yes, it's true. Oh, my goodness. Yes, thank you so much for saying that. I mean look how many fairy tales have an evil step mom Like there is. I think there's a visceral reaction within us that we're not even aware of when you say step mother. Yeah. Oh that is not interesting.
Gail Miller:And the other part of that is just the term. So people use the term step mom, step mother. They have the expectation of the mother part of that. Like your mother, this child or these children, you will love them like they're your own. You will care for them, you'll do for them. But then there's the step part, and the very same people who put the expectation on you that you will take care of them and do for them as if they were your own will be the very same people who step up and say wait a minute, they're not yours, you're the step yeah, and you don't have the same rights, and so which is not?
Gail Miller:that's not a common view or not a common use of the word step dad, Like people don't say to a step dad, we expect you to love them like your own, but oh, no, no, no, no, you're the step. When a step dad kind of steps in and takes ownership, if you will, people view it very differently. It's like look at how wonderful he is. He's done so much. These kids, that's their dad. They don't do that for step moms.
Sheri Johnson:I don't even think most of us are even aware of that. But I think you're so right.
Gail Miller:I wasn't aware of it either till I. It's my lived experience with people and then start studying it and okay, this is not your imagination, this is a real thing. This is how society views you.
Sheri Johnson:Yeah, I think that's really good insight. So something else that I wanted to ask you about was just how so I was thinking about before I called this morning that whole idea of just being able to like, when you come into a partnership with someone who already has kids, the whole idea of discipline or being able to say what you think or offer an opinion or whatever it is for those children. I have my own opinion on that, but I wanna hear what you think and how it does play out and maybe how it could be different.
Gail Miller:That's a tough one because, like you don't want to, you don't wanna be the disciplinarian. The partner, the parent, sometimes in some situations, kind of relegates that because they don't wanna be the bad guy. Right, they've gone through this two books. You don't wanna alienate their kids. So there are situations where they make the step mom, the disciplinarian, which then, depending on your relationship, especially with their mind, it creates so many layers of problems To me. I look at it in terms of expectations. My husband and I had very different expectations of when his kids were at our house. They had it like there's so many different ways you can do this, but it was every other week.
Gail Miller:It was just full week at a time. But also if there was something they wanted to do with their mom and our week, they do it. Vice versa. If they forgot something at her house, they'd go get it.
Gail Miller:Vice versa, where I can tell you the person I was in a relationship before my husband, who that was not at all how they functioned and the kids were in the middle and it was horrible. So my expectation was like, okay, have some rules in the house and some expectations like hey, I'm making dinner, you guys set the table, you guys help clean up. And it wasn't. I'm gonna go sit on the couch with my feet up and you go in and do the work.
Gail Miller:And my husband just was so didn't wanna be the bad guy that he didn't want to ask them to do these things and that became an issue between us that now again, in hindsight, I was like I could have handled that differently. I kind of let some things slide that I shouldn't have and then we'd have conversations about it and he would afterwards say you're right, I shouldn't have, I should be expecting them. But there was also that fear of I don't wanna lose my kids because they start to dislike me. Now his two daughters who are older. One daughter left for college right like the month after we got married, so there weren't any issues in his middle daughters, kind of just like him.
Gail Miller:So he's like okay, I'll do whatever you like she, doesn't she not your typical teenager in terms of, like, fighting back His son was an issue? We definitely had our issues with his son, and in part because my husband should have stood up for me and didn't? I mean his son was being a teenage boy, right, but his son, on the other hand, has, since he got older, apologized to me for yeah, I gave you a hard time, yeah, you did, mm-hmm, yep. And then his sister actually the one when he sat there and apologized to me. His sister was sitting there too and she apologized to me too, and I said, for what? I didn't have any problems with you, I just feel like I should. Well, okay, I'll accept the apology, you didn't do anything.
Gail Miller:Now, we did have one issue with her. That was three months after we got married. She had gotten her, she was driving, she had just gotten her driver's license and at least in Colorado they could only have a sibling in the car with them. They couldn't have anybody else underage.
Gail Miller:And they came home one day and I knew she had driven her brother and a friend and I'm like, okay, if I let her get away with this, then I'm the patsy, she can step all over, but if I say something then I'm the evil stepmother and it tormented me for a couple of hours before I finally just said something to her and you could have come to me and I would have. You can be honest with me and I mean she was a teenager, she was 16. So we've all done those things and we talked about, we worked it out and then afterwards I just bawled Because I was looking. This feels so awful that I have to do this in this person who has been in her life how long. And now I'm sure she's thinking of me as the evil stepmother.
Sheri Johnson:I'm sure that that evil stepmother kind of thing going on is a that's yourself worth talking. It's been ingrained in us that you're less than if you're the stepmom. You're less than the mom. You're over down the totem pole, and so we, like I think you'd automatically take that on as a stepmom the moment you get into that relationship.
Gail Miller:Yeah, it's definitely that feeling of less than absolutely.
Sheri Johnson:It's interesting, though, to me that you said that you talked about how the stepparent, whether it's the stepmom or stepdad, can sometimes become be expected to become the disciplinarian. I actually thought that it would have gone the other direction, because you see the stepkids on TV, say, talking to the stepmom, saying you're not my mom, you don't get to discipline me, and she actually wants to be able to discipline them, and so I had sort of assumed that you were gonna say. The opposite was that your husband would be the one to say well, no, I'm the parent here, so I get to make the decisions, I get to decide how my kids are disciplined. You're not, you don't get to be a part of that. Or maybe it's the other, the mom, who's saying that, that you don't get to parent my kid. Do you see that?
Gail Miller:coming up. Oh yeah, that is common as well, that you which is where we had an issue, and it wasn't I want to discipline him, it was simply can he help clear the table? Can he Teenage boy, so like, not exactly the cleanest of people, so Throwing something in the garbage and it doesn't make it and it hits the floor and leaving it? Can can I please be able to say, hey, could you pick that up? But we had to work through that because it was like, well, no, no, you're that's not your role, well, but it's our house, right. So there is that there that is common, that you are made to feel like you don't have that right to ask those things or to discipline. And then there is also what people don't expect, which is that some partners want the step parent to be the disciplinary and so they're not the bad guy. Good cop, bad cop.
Sheri Johnson:Yeah, and yet this is what I was thinking about this morning was that you know, if you, if I, for example, take care of my nieces and nephews, I Make the decisions. I ask them to Help, or I, and I have also done that when I have had this interesting. Actually, this just came to me. I had a friend come and visit me for a week. She stayed with us in the summer and she has two boys. She left her husband at home and if they're you know, if they're weak in my house and these are boys, they were at the time 9 and 11 or 9 and 12.
Sheri Johnson:There was a day where I asked the older one to help me with something with dinner, help me peel some corn and he looked at me and said, mmm, I don't feel like it. And his mom backed him up and I was annoyed by that. I was. I was like he, he did get what. I do see what he just did. And she said, oh, he is so bagged. You know, he just got home from camp. It's all new to him, he's just tired.
Sheri Johnson:And I was kind of like no, no, no, like your state, this is my house and I certainly didn't feel as though I had a right to say, yes, I think you do need to come, but at the same time, when I thought about it later, I thought well, by bringing your kids into my home, you know, it takes a village, that there's we. We live in these Silo's now where, really, these are my kids and this is my family and this is my house. And Yet that never used to be the way it was. We didn't evolve that way. We evolved as tribes, and Other parents would have parented different kids. They would have asked them to do something. They would have Said no, you're not doing that or that's not acceptable.
Sheri Johnson:And yet when that happens now, whether it's in a situation like mine or in a Relationship where there's a step parent, I think that that's Perfectly acceptable and those are maybe the conversations that we need to be having. Is, when you enter into a relationship with someone who already has kids, the conversation between the step parent and the parent is Okay, what are our expectations? And we are now a parenting unit, the mom and step daughter a different parenting unit. We need to make decisions together. I'm gonna stop now. You're you're the guest. Tell me how you're responding to this. Are you reacting? Oh?
Gail Miller:I Absolutely agree with everything you said. Had it been a niece or nephew Like if I'd been in that situation that you were in and it was my niece or nephew I would have said, no, come to help me. But with a friend, or certainly at the time with step kids, like, yeah, no, I don't feel like I can. Yeah, we did have those conversations beforehand. But when you're like in, it's that's just, it's like a concept, then right. And when you're in real life, kind of stuff goes out the window.
Gail Miller:Yeah, yeah, it's kind of something like that that would happen. We'd talk about it and you'd say You're right, I should have. But in in the thick of things, it's like the fear of I don't want to alienate my kids.
Gail Miller:Yes, I mean what I see because, like at work too, when people come in, you know they already have kids there, you know they're bringing their kids in for their ultrasound and I'm always, I feel like such an old buddy buddy, because I'm always shocked at how these kids respond and you know they're asking to sit quietly. No, wait, I, I would never have it as a child, as a teenager, with my parents Said that I mean, that would be, that was an absolute.
Sheri Johnson:no, you don't do that, mm-hmm.
Gail Miller:And I'm surprised at how many I would say the vast majority behave like that, like what you're describing. And and parents, okay, yeah.
Sheri Johnson:Mm-hmm.
Sheri Johnson:Yeah and what you know when you think about it. There's all kinds of situations where we allow other people to discipline our kids or to help them with decisions or to. You know, just take those roles teachers, for example, or Doctors, when there's a child, you know a parent brings a Child in for a checkup and that doctors asking them to do something, and the expectation is that that child Will do that. That you know. There's all kinds of situations where, where other adults take on that role of I don't want to call it a disciplinarian, it's, it's not necessarily, it's just a the role of a guide or or a parent, or a I don't know what to call it but a, a purse, an authority figure or a Person who's. You know that sort of thing.
Gail Miller:I think it's a guide for behavior. Sorry.
Sheri Johnson:I didn't mean yes that's what it is.
Gail Miller:It's. It's not even setting rules or disciplining. It's a guide for how you behave Respectfully.
Sheri Johnson:Yeah, and I think that's perfectly Normal. And yet there's always friction in a relationship, or not always. I shouldn't say always, but in many of the friends that I have who are step parents, there's often friction With their partner over over that. So can we talk about some of the things that You've done for yourself that have helped your relationship in those situations?
Gail Miller:Yes, so why are clients?
Sheri Johnson:doesn't necessarily have to be you like what's worked with your clients as well.
Gail Miller:Yeah, well, one is. I specifically Went for coaching from someone who's a stepmom. At the time this was before I ever thought about becoming a coach, and what I learned from her, that was the beginning of my recognition of my own worthiness.
Sheri Johnson:That.
Gail Miller:Just, I'm a human, I have an innate worth, and I know it's not based on anything else and that because of that, I Boundaries are fine or healthy, not just fine and that I don't have to say yes to things that I don't want to say yes to, and so that was what I learned to do. That's when I learned to say no, this is not okay in our home. No, I don't want to go to that game or whatever it was like I'm tired, I've had a full week, I'm not gonna go to that event for them. So, honestly, the best thing I learned before it was that boundaries are Healthy. That is so good.
Gail Miller:They are. That took a lot of a lot of work to like, because we're taught that, especially as women, that we're here to serve other people and no matter how that hurts us, we're supposed to do for others, whether it's step kids or anybody else.
Gail Miller:Yeah just this is not just a second thing, and that's is that's how women are viewed and are raised Mm-hmm. So they have all those years of conditioning that that's what you're supposed to do. It takes time to Decondition that and to recognize I'm worthwhile and if this is not going to suit me, if this is gonna hurt me, it's okay to say no. Yeah, learning that boundaries are healthy and and that the second part is I mean, you can know that conceptually, but putting them into place as a whole. Another story, right?
Gail Miller:So it's the work of the work of first acknowledging, yeah, boundaries are good things and then learning how to feel good about putting them into place instead of feeling guilty.
Sheri Johnson:Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you know it's interesting because I talk about boundaries all the time. It's part of you know you won't maintain boundaries if you don't, if you have low self-worth or if your self-worth is suffering, your boundaries are gonna. You're gonna just be Overstepping those all the time and just people pleasing and doing all of those things to please everybody else that you just talked about.
Sheri Johnson:But I hadn't really sat down to think about it in the context of being a step parent and and Gosh, like mothers these days are expected to be the perfect mom and To serve everybody around them, and we talk about the women who do everything for their kids, are almost martyred, like it's such a Rampant belief in our society that this is what we are supposed to do as women. But I hadn't really thought about how that plays out as a step parent, that the expectation is the same. You're a woman, so you are expected to serve everybody else, whether they're your kids or not, and it's okay for you as a step mom or for the mothers to say I've had a full week and I'm not gonna go watch the game. Yeah, that and and Okay, so the other thing that I wanted to get you, just just to speak a little bit more about is is what boundaries actually are in your view and how to actually practice keeping them.
Gail Miller:Yeah, so I always Tell clients it's kind of a balance. Sometimes it's not a matter of Okay, this is hurting me, so I won't do it, and then I'll be okay. Sometimes it's a matter of Neither. One of these are good options. So which is gonna be the least painful for me Like, for example, thanksgiving is coming up.
Gail Miller:Not going to Thanksgiving for whatever reason, whether it's your childless, whether there's family issues, whatever it is may you'll feel better because you don't have to be in the thick of whatever the problem is the source of the pain. But on the other hand, if you don't go, the results of that the family, the anger, whatever it is that may be worse for you. So the boundary isn't always. In fact, a lot of times it's not a clear line, it's a which is going to be less painful for me. Will it be less painful for me to go to that Thanksgiving dinner or will it be less painful for me to deal with the anger from my family after because I don't go? I'm at that stage in my life where I don't care about your anger, I have to take care of me. And sometimes you do get to that point in life where it becomes a clear line and I'm able to, I don't really care. I'm at that point where it's my life, where it's like what you think of me is your business, not mine.
Gail Miller:Yeah, yes, but that took lots of work to get to that point. So sometimes it is like it's okay. If everybody is mad at me because I don't go to that dinner or whatever event, that is gonna be so awful or they're gonna be vindictive. I mean, people are vindictive even within families, right? So they're gonna be terrible to me. I'm gonna go to the dinner, but I'm gonna set some boundaries that way. So you arrive, you let them know ahead of time, I'm only gonna spend X number of hours. Or after dinner I have to leave, whatever. Make up a reason for the next day. You have to be at work 6 am or whatever it is. So sometimes it's setting a boundary that way and part of it is okay knowing where the bathroom is, right.
Gail Miller:So that that's a boundary to step away and go to the bathroom and be or step outside, and that's a boundary. So there's not clear lines for that most of the time and so you have to kind of look ahead. And what I really strongly encourage and what I work on with clients is some of the boundaries have to be verbal, like when you wanna tell someone I don't wanna talk about that and they wanna keep going or it's none of their business. But we're so used to thinking that if we say, oh, I don't wanna talk about it, it's gonna hurt their feeling and really like they're asking personal questions that they shouldn't be asking. Why is that okay? But it's not okay for us to say that's personal, I don't wanna talk about it. So a key that I really work on with clients is practicing ahead of time, because the minute somebody says in distress, you forget everything you wanna say.
Gail Miller:So, we work on first having like a general answer to things like it's personal, I don't wanna talk about it, but we work on putting it in words that they feel comfortable with. For me, that's very comfortable to say it's personal, I don't wanna talk about it, but we each have to speak this in a way that feels genuine to us and then we work on practicing it. It's partly a mental rehearsal and I tell clients to do a mental rehearsal of it, but also stand in front of a mirror and say it, because that helps when we're in that stressful situation. To be like it becomes an automatic.
Sheri Johnson:Right, it just flows out of your mouth without you having to think about it.
Gail Miller:Right, because when I first started to try to do that, I would completely forget what it was. My mind would just be a blank and I couldn't even think of a polite thing to say, and so I learned I had to practice that yeah Well, and it is a practice.
Sheri Johnson:I've said this a lot on the podcast. It self-worth like maintaining your boundaries is a practice. You have to get comfortable with saying something that might not meet somebody else's needs. That's the whole thing. That's what I'm hearing you saying is to uncover what are our needs and untangle that from other people's needs of us, and then to be able to say, no, I'm not gonna meet your needs, I'm gonna meet my needs, and that feels really uncomfortable. But when you practice ahead of time, that would make a difference Absolutely.
Gail Miller:I mean because we really have to think about. We've all lived so many years of thinking we have to do for others. You don't change that overnight. No, that is so true.
Sheri Johnson:I mean, that is so deeply ingrained in us that we are here to serve everybody else. That's thousands of years worth of programming and conditioning that is so rampant in our society. It's I don't know many cultures out there that don't have that. Yeah, some are worse than others, but it's there, yeah.
Gail Miller:Even in the most liberal or forward thinking cultures it's still there and it's really ingrained. We don't even know what's there.
Sheri Johnson:We're living inside this box of societal expectations and we don't even know we're living in the box. It's like what is that metaphor? It's like asking a goldfish how's the water? And the goldfish says what's water? We're just living in it. So we have no idea that we're even living in it. Yeah, that's a perfect metaphor.
Gail Miller:I don't know where I heard it.
Sheri Johnson:If you're listening and you know this is a me and DM. So I'm looking at the time and I can never believe how fast the time goes when I'm having these conversations. I have a feeling so we wanted to talk about health care and how to get what you need within the health care system, and I have a feeling that it's going to have something to do with boundaries as well and stating your needs. So if we could quickly go there and then we'll wrap up in a few minutes, but tell me your thoughts. Being a health care practitioner, being a physician, talk to us about that, because it's something I had never even thought about advocating for myself as a child.
Gail Miller:Ok, I'm not quite sure what it's like in Canada, but a big percentage of health care visits here in the States are electronic. I mean, there's an electronic medical record and you register beforehand and you check in beforehand and I strongly, strongly recommend that you have a medical record. Thank you Putting in a note ahead of time. This is you know. Whatever it is that is painful for you about it or that you don't want to talk about, this is my history. You know I this is not something I want to talk about if it's not relevant to the visit or if it is, you're going for your first. You know it's a new doctor, new exam, and you know they're going to be asking this history. I would write out your. You know I've had this many miscarriages, I've gone through this, this many IVFs, like like, I've had all of this stuff. Write it out and I don't want to discuss this and let them give it to them ahead of time. And if it's a situation where you can't put that in, it is, there is absolutely nothing wrong with writing it out on a notepad or typing it up on something and handing it at the beginning of the visit, because usually you're brought in by a nurse or a medical assistant or there. That is your right, that is, it is your right to feel empowered when you go to a medical visit, to feel, to not experience something that's going to trigger you that you didn't even need to experience, and that's part of the problem is that people will just bring up things because they so.
Gail Miller:For example, someone who went to a plastic surgery appointment had nothing to do with having a child. Somehow it came up when she looked. The plastic surgeon looked through the chart that you don't have children and so she said, without kind of thinking that this could lead to anything, said, no, we've gone through IVF for three years. My husband and I have decided to stop at this point. The response to that was well, I have a friend who's been going through it for 10 years. Three years is nothing. Hey, there was no reason for that to be said. Now I like to think that they were trying to give someone hope. Yeah, they didn't give that person hope. They minimize is what she has been through, what she and her husband have been through.
Gail Miller:So you should never go to a visit and have to deal with a trigger like that, right? So that's why I really want to try and advocate for educating healthcare providers on what is not acceptable to talk about. And the other part is definitely write out what you do not want to talk about beforehand and let them know, and I also. This is also where practicing comes in handy. Practicing saying I don't want to talk about that. Yeah, because you're in this relationship where typically there's this sort of not a thought authoritarian, but regardless of who you're seeing, you're the patient you kind of feel small compared to. I mean, I go into visits feeling the same way, right, as the patient you feel like, and so you don't want to be rude. Yeah, it's not being rude to say this is painful for me, I don't want to talk about it, but it is one of those things that you have to practice beforehand.
Sheri Johnson:Yeah, I do remember going into see a doctor. This is before I started my whole journey. I think I was about 35 or 36 and had a regular checkup or something. And the doctor said to me you know, you should really start thinking about having kids soon, because you're getting up there and the clock is ticking. And I got to think that that, like that, I am not the only one he has said that to.
Sheri Johnson:And, yes, I think there's maybe a responsibility for a physician to let people know, because they may not. I mean, even though he said that, I still thought I was invincible. I've got loads of time before I have kids, but I mean, I wasn't even in a relationship at that point. So I was like well, what do you want me to do with that? And I suspect that that is said to many women who have already maybe made the decision not to have children, or they've already been through all of it, and they go to a new doctor and they're like you know, you should really start thinking about having kids, you're running out of time. Well, you know, maybe they haven't read the chart or whatever the case may be, there's, you know, we need to be able to say, no, I'm not going to talk about that. I'm not here to talk about that today. This is what I'm here to talk about.
Sheri Johnson:And say that without feeling like we're offending some, like it's hard not to feel like you're offending that doctor in your right, you do feel like you're less than doctors are made to be docking a one here. So this is kind of awkward to say, but I mean it's no different in Canada, I think, in the States or wherever you go that a doctor is, a doctor knows all. He knows way more than you do a doctor knows. So you don't feel like you are as worthy and you don't feel like you can stick up for yourself or advocate for yourself. And they're all just, they're people. You and I are just having a conversation.
Gail Miller:Yeah, yeah, no, you know offensive, because I can't tell you how often I come home like God, they think they know everything and so, no, no, no offense taken. And it is in part how you approach things, how you say things, because there is this responsibility to make sure you know, especially now with egg freezing, like, do you want to know about this?
Gail Miller:but we should never be imposing yeah, ask permission first, yeah, I mean I often have to talk to patients about their weight, which is it's very uncomfortable to be on that receiving end. I mean it's a total, but I always ask them is this okay? This is why you were sent to me. Is this okay if we have this conversation, that's a very compassionate thing to say.
Gail Miller:And I always, and I always start. I understand this is uncomfortable and nobody wants to be on the receiving end of this. You know, we all come from different backgrounds, different training. So, yeah, people will doctors will, nurse practitioners and PAs will say things like that People tell me medical assistants who are rooming them will say things like yeah, so it's, it's at every level. I know of someone who the receptionist as soon as she walked in, because she's been going to that practice for a while and so that you know the receptionist recognized her and I'm going to talk to the doctor about, you know, because you know you're getting older.
Sheri Johnson:Oh, my goodness.
Gail Miller:So it's at every point in healthcare. Yeah, there's that, there's triggers, there's inappropriate things being said. Pernatalism at its best, right, yeah, so my, my. The sum of what to do with healthcare is if your visits would be advocate for yourself, whatever that means for you. If it means letting them know ahead of time, I don't want to talk about this. If it means, at the time, saying stop, I don't want to talk about this.
Sheri Johnson:Yeah, thank you for that. It's good to have it. It's really nice actually to have that permission from a doctor, to have someone like you say that no, we need it, but we do. Yeah, yeah, and sometimes it is just a matter of someone saying it you know, for some reason it's not, we just need someone to say it out loud. Yeah, so I think that's a good segue to your free gift that you have for my listeners. Do you want to tell us about where they can find that and what it is?
Gail Miller:Sure, so it is. I have a. It's a free mini course that is taking charge of healthcare conversations and it's tips for talking with healthcare providers when you're charged.
Sheri Johnson:Beautiful Well, thank you so much, and where I'm going to link that up in the show notes. But do you want to just say where they can find that?
Gail Miller:Probably the simplest way to find me is on my website and you can sign up there for the course, so it's pathonwardcom.
Sheri Johnson:Perfect Pathonwardcom, and you're also on Instagram at childless path onward. Yes, and I will link those up in the show notes. I want to take a minute just to show my gratitude for to you for coming on the podcast, for sharing your wisdom and for such a great conversation.
Gail Miller:Well, thank you, this was been one. I was an unexpected conversation because I thought it would only be about step non, so I'm glad that it was like we went down different roads. It was a wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed this.