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It Gets To Be Easy
We empower women to grow confident in creating their most healthful & joy-filled life with ease.
It Gets To Be Easy
Thriving with Healthy Boundaries - Shifting from Hustle Module 3
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Ever felt overwhelmed by the constant demand to hustle and neglect your personal boundaries? Imagine confidently saying no to an after-hours meeting and watching the ripple effect of empowerment it creates. Today on the It Gets To Be Easy Podcast, we're diving into the art of setting and enforcing healthy boundaries, with real-life stories and practical tips to make this shift effortlessly.
Join us as we unpack the fears and societal pressures that often keep us from valuing our own limits. Shauna shares a profound experience from her work as an outpatient therapy provider, revealing how overwhelming documentation requirements highlighted the need for clearer professional boundaries. Through a self-assessment approach, learn to identify whether you're prioritizing others at the expense of your well-being, and discover how to reclaim your time and energy by setting firm, respectful boundaries.
Lastly, we'd like to guide you in exploring the internal boundaries within yourself—those silent promises and guilt trips that often sabotage your efforts. From handling work emails to balancing business responsibilities, we're here to support your journey with affirmations and self-talk reframing techniques. Empower yourself with our Shifting from Hustle course and join our community for shared experiences, insights, and growth. Let's embrace a more balanced and fulfilling life together!
Mentioned in this episode:
- The Dance of Hustle and Joyful Calm - Shift from Hustle Module 1
- Navigating Life Beyond Hustle Culture - Shift from Hustle Module 2
Digital Courses
Shifting Hustle Course - Available on Patreon
- Reset your availability
- Learn your core values and passions
- Tap into your inner knowing
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Email - ksempoweredliving@gmail.com
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Shauna Bell @sbell.wellness
Katie Smith @k.smithoilsfitness
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Welcome to it Gets To Be Easy Podcast where you're granted permission to live your most healthful and joy-filled life with ease.
Speaker 1:We are your hosts, katie and Shauna, and together we've been cracking the code to creating our own realities with ease, and now we've set out to help you grow confident in this too.
Speaker 2:Hey friends, welcome back to the show. Today we are headed into part three of a four-part chat that we started, actually a couple of weeks back. As a reminder, we've been sharing our personal experiences, revisiting the modules of our Shifting from Hustle course. If you haven't caught parts one and two yet, we really do invite you to head back to those, as we've kind of designed this course with a flow and this conversation will land even more for you if you're following along with that flow. So, module three that's what we're talking about today.
Speaker 2:This one is all about setting and enforcing healthy boundaries. In the course. We start with helping you understand the reasons you want to create boundaries in order to create the possibility of shifting from hustle. We include a quick boundary self-assessment that actually, I created that back in 2022, but it even goes further back than that as I started thinking about it. So I'm going to dig in on that a little bit with you all today. Yeah, it's just really been a shift in growth and seeing all of that. But going back to that course now has really shown that, and I really know that there are other women listening in here that need the support too.
Speaker 1:It's so true. So next we take you through a self-awareness journaling exercise to take a look at fears that come up when setting boundaries. It's really an exercise of getting honest so you can feel the desire to set and enforce boundaries that are something you value. And in the final section of the module we dive into steps for setting boundaries and even some helpful pointers for handling responses when you jump in on the boundary setting. Let's jump in and see what came up as we allowed ourselves to journey back through the activities. Shall we, shauna? Did anything surprise you when you navigated back through these?
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, my gosh. So I think what surprised me the most is just thinking about the timeframe, right? So at first, when I started journaling about it, I was thinking, okay, yeah, looking back on these boundary setting and how, like, I even created this boundary assessment when I first started one of my coaching programs and I was seeing, like some really big shifts of mine, like, you know, putting other people's needs over mine, or I didn't want to disappoint others. You know, feeling this need to like anticipate other people's needs, like before mine, or you know, this feeling of like always feeling like I was behind. And so, as I was thinking about that even more, what became even more surprising this week as I was reflecting on it, was that it even goes back further than that. Like I actually really started doing a lot of this inner work around boundaries back when I was in health coaching school back in 2020. So when I was thinking about that, I'm like this is four years and sometimes it still feels really sticky, and so I thought, gosh, that's really important to reflect on and think about, because a lot of times we get stuck like, oh no, I'm not doing this. I said I was going to do this or I'm supposed to be doing this personal development work and I'm still getting stuck with healthy boundaries, and as the conversation goes on today, I think we'll talk about some of those that are personally kind of hitting us this week. But yeah, I think that was one of the biggest surprises for me is just like the timeframe of that, and of course, we've been talking a lot about not getting attached to timeframes, right, and so it's. Maybe it's it's different little times that have, you know, been happening throughout the journey, and I guess if we're not so stuck on destination, then the time doesn't matter. So, yeah, I think that was probably definitely one of the biggest surprises for me is just being able to see how much I've been able to shift, and I think one of the things that was so empowering with it, and what I want you all to hear here, is that sometimes it feels like you're the one creating these boundaries and that other people are taking offense to it or other people are feeling like why is she doing this?
Speaker 2:But what was so helpful for me in the beginning was, I remember, after kind of doing some work with this, and I was on a call one day and this is back when I worked in the school setting and I was on a call one day and they had asked those of us on the team to meet after work hours and for the first time, I felt confident in saying no, setting that healthy boundary, literally.
Speaker 2:As I said it, I started getting text messages. This was back when we were virtual right, so people were messaging each other while we were on meetings, right, and so I get these messages coming through Thank you, thank you for saying no. I wanted to say no, and so much like my body still gets chills with that because I was like, oh my gosh, other people want this too, and no one's like feeling like they can confidently do this because we might be, you know, hurting someone else's feelings or making it look like we don't want to be a team player or whatever it is, and so I just think that those are really important. To set the ground as we talk today is like stepping into that courage with. It is probably one of the first steps when you're setting these healthy boundaries.
Speaker 1:I love that and I think I remember that story. By the way, and to elaborate on that particular piece, this is going in a different direction. So forgive my stumble, but I feel like we are still recovering from that push to have no boundaries. When we went through the pandemic, you like as much as we were partitioned off and you had these massive boundaries, but we also didn't have other boundaries, like. It's very interesting and I think one of the things in our course that we talk about here is, like one of the reasons to have boundaries is to have stronger relationships, and you made a bunch of new friends at work when you said the no. You made a bunch of new friends at work when you said the no.
Speaker 1:But maintaining these healthy relationships by clearly communicating our needs or expectations, it limits conflict, it limits misunderstandings and it's really something that a theme that we've been talking about a lot this year is how do we ask for help, how do we ask for what we need, and it could be easy to think of boundaries as a way of like blocking things off. But a boundary could also just could be something that you're keeping close or honoring whatever it is you need, or honoring a piece of your relationship, like a boundary for Carl and I is like we vow not to talk bad about each other to other people, or if we're with someone who's talking poorly about their spouse, like gauging the situation, like those kinds of boundaries also exist in this space, and so while I was doing that self-assessment as well, it's like I read through and I find myself having the same thing those varying degrees of allowing my boundaries to be blurred, which is so fascinating because, like you said, we're doing this work, we have this and we realize again there's ebbs and flows. We talked about this when we talked about module one, where we have to allow things to flow and change, module one where we have to allow things to flow and change. And I think that's something I really want to emphasize here is that as long as we are loving consciously and living consciously, we can find our way back to having the healthy boundary we allowed to get blurred. And I think it's important I'm coaching myself here a little bit it's like not to get down on myself when I recognize that that happened.
Speaker 1:And, like you talked about real life and we were just talking before we clicked record, but I started getting messages from work at 530 my time and it was something they needed and because my work is East Coast, I felt like I had to jump on the computer and answer the questions, get them what they needed, because it was still going to be in my non-work hours by the time the issue had passed. So it's just recognizing. It's easy to let that kind of happen and then people's expectations change a view. So that's, it's such a deep reflection. But I think the main point here is just be conscious of it and don't worry if you you allowed it to get blurred.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, my gosh. So much about what you said there, so funny, as you were saying. I literally was writing down lines so blurred as you start saying it, right, because it is, and I think the piece of this that we're seeing as growth, and why we're coming and talking about it in real time with you as we're going back and looking at it is because exactly what you just said monitoring it not from a place of judgment, but just realizing when it's happening, right, and so then we can tap into that and monitor it in such a way as, like, okay, is this something I actually do want to do and I do want to be helpful and supportive here, or is it something that actually I'm cringing, but I'm just doing it because I feel like I have to? Those are so very different things, right, and so the more we can take that pause and just create that for ourselves.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean that we're not going to jump in, because sometimes we do want to, it is actually something we desire, it gives us joy to do that, and so that's okay. But I think the really important part that you said, katie, was that we do have to make sure that we're not doing it so much that we are setting up these expectations that other have of us and then we send ourselves into the spiral of frustration, you know, disappointment, all of those things when we now feel like we have to because it's expected of us. So, yeah, that was a really good point and I think it's important, as we do this work together is just continuing to have that pulse on these things.
Speaker 1:We'd like to take a break from our show to invite you to join our Patreon community. Over on Patreon, we have so many incredible resources to support you in your journey to living your most health-filled and joy-filled life. We have journal prompts, we have exclusive host interviews, we have incredible resources with self-affirmations and guidance on how to approach creating your own reality with ease. We hope to see you over on Patreon soon and we look forward to welcoming you into our incredible community. Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 1:So of our quick boundaries, like our self-assessment, I just want to throw some of the questions out there that we have that prompted us in this conversation. So a couple of the big ones here is that do others' needs seem much more urgent than yours? Do you hate to disappoint others' expectations? Or another one is do you believe that if you don't anticipate people's needs and provide service for them, they won't want to be with you? And so there're just some. I wanted to throw some of the questions out there to help people kind of get a glimpse of what we're working with, and those in particular, because it's they relate really closely to how I feel. So, as we went through that, this next part is like identifying the boundaries. You know, we asked ourselves those questions and then kind of sat and pondered with them. So when you were going through these Shauna and you were kind of doing this boundary work, is there an example you want to share or something that came up that you want to really dig into after you realized you were allowing a boundary to get?
Speaker 2:blurred.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So. You know, I think those questions are very powerful and I will say, you know, going back through them there, there was a lot of like wow, there's so much power that doing this inner work has had, because I don't feel that a lot of those land as much as they used to right, like I really was in there but I did right, like I really was in there but I did. You know, I have seen one lately in my role as an outpatient therapy provider A lot of what I do on paper has to be reviewed by a third party, right, and so these payers are reviewing notes and they're going through it and they're denying things and sending things back saying you know, we want so much more from this documentation that you're writing and all of these things and it's.
Speaker 2:It became something that was kind of consuming me and my thoughts the past few weeks, because I'm like this this is a lot like the service that we're providing is for these children and the work that we're doing is monumental and it's so supportive of them. You know, why is this documentation not being looked at and seen and interpreted in that way? And so it really actually started to feel like a boundary was being pushed, and so where I was going with it first was very much connected to what we talked about in module one, about core values and beliefs, right, and so belief it was starting to feel like I was being offended by it. That, you know. I got myself wrapped into some thoughts around that. Like what do you mean? Like I've been doing this for several decades now, like I know what I'm doing, I'm documenting what I'm doing, like this person behind a screen is reading this and not there, they don't see it Right. Like there's. It felt like I wasn't being valued, and so I started taking it personally, right. So that's kind of the one piece of it that I started looking at myself and want you to hear, to be encouraged with that too, is like how is this making me feel? But then I also started to look at is this a boundary invasion or is this something that I am allowing myself to not even have boundaries around, right? And so even just yesterday, I was driving into work and I was listening to we talk about Abraham.
Speaker 2:Sometimes on the show I was listening to an Abraham rant, and it was really kind of just similar to some of these things and what I was coming around to it was. I started laughing honestly because I was like, okay, I want it to be easy. The documentation that I have is very checkbox. I want it to be easy so that you know it doesn't consume us as therapists. But then I started thinking about it from the other perspective. The third party person reading this doesn't want to go through all the checkboxes and put the pieces together. They want to read it as a narrative, which for me as a therapist takes longer. They want to read it as a narrative because that's quicker, that's easier for them. And so I really had this huge aha.
Speaker 2:But I think if I had not been thinking about it from this perspective of boundaries and how that felt and why am I still here and why do these things keep coming back around If we don't take the time to reflect on it from this perspective, it was unable to see that, you know, and so that put it into perspective of okay, maybe here's what we can shift into. And we actually started talking about like, oh, let's look at other documentation systems that actually will remove a lot of the things that look like extra that this other person might not want to read. So it doesn't mean that I have to go do the way they want it either, but where's the common ground? Right? But none of that would have happened had it not been a blurred boundary and had I not tapped into it. So yeah, that's been really powerful.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's good, and I think that's kind of the point is that these are opportunities for us to really reflect on what our day-to-day looks like, and I think it's such a powerful moment to see that there's something within your routine or something in your day-to-day that you're like, oh wow, I really don't want to do that that way anymore. Or we really like how I'm doing that and I'm going to refine it and perfect it. And I think for me, in that same vein, it was like I was realizing like there was this that boundary of like time to care for myself is getting blurred, and I think that that relates nicely to this conversation, because it's easy to keep feeling this anxiety, but you don't want to add another burden, but you recognize that something's not right. So how do you figure out the harmony to use words that we've we've come across in the last two episodes? But finding that harmony is important and I realized that I know it's some of the feelings I have about feeling like I'm a burden or not being able to ask for what I need is not valid.
Speaker 1:So figuring out how I put boundaries on our schedule, how I make sure that I'm taking care of rest and restoration and one of the things that was so great about this exercise was I was able to sit within my journal and say what does the ideal situation look like for me, like how do I start to build that out? And so I was able to go through and say this is how I see this. I'm going to start small and I'm going to make these small incremental changes to get back to that place where there's time in our life built for me to just focus on me. And then we talked about when we did module one. There's so much going on, there's so much fun to do, and I keep recognizing the need to rest or take care of myself, but I'm not putting it there and that's a boundary that I've blurred, because right after you know, in 2022, most of 2023, like that was the high priority, and now I'm kind of like, oh, I'm physically feeling better, ish, so I'm going to forget to focus on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here we are. Yeah, I love that you brought that up because I think that's so important. I think that's actually what was kind of coming through for me, too. Is that not only okay?
Speaker 2:So, when we started this and we started really talking about conversations with healthy boundaries, we're talking about us and another person, right, even some things that we've talked about today about us and another person right Even some things that we've talked about today Katie, with work emails coming in early in the morning. Me with some third-party pay yourself. We're kind of still talking about what's this relationship with other people. But you just hit it right there too. It's what are those healthy boundaries with the stories in our head, within us, right? So those things of you saying, like, you know I'm not, you know it's not valid for me to have these wants and these feelings, because you know we have all this other fun stuff to do. So, yeah, that's kind of what's been coming through is just really being able to look at this from another.
Speaker 2:Another step, right, is like now we get to dig in on with what boundaries am I like not really honing in on for myself? Right, and you know, for me I've been seeing that come through as like being okay with living more in the now. You know, and really the actions truly that I'm taking for things like, especially in my business, you know, really just following inspired action, really just creating the things that you know I want to be a part of or want to join in on, or make connections with people, and allowing that to be enough, versus like there's this laundry list of shoulds, right, and so I think that's a really great place for us to continue to tap into as we look at boundaries. It's not just in our relationships with other people, although that's so incredibly important to maintain it's also the boundaries within the stories we tell ourselves part here is like how do we enforce those boundaries?
Speaker 1:and I even wrote here it's as I was progressing through this module. It's like what happens when you have to enforce the boundaries with ourselves was literally what I said exactly, and I like that feels like the most complicated scenario. So it's like how do you honor yourself? So knowing that I'm the main blocker is pretty eyeopening. So I think you know, in the module we have like how do we handle responses from other people setting those boundaries?
Speaker 1:But I want to kind of sit on this one for a little bit longer and talk about this part about enforcing them with ourselves and so, like I said, it's like starting small and finding ways to feel like it's less of a burden to do X, Y, Z, and so in this scenario is feel like it's less of a burden for me to say this is what I want this time and not feel bad about it, Really releasing that guilt and start by adding it to the calendar. That's easy for me because that's where it's driving our life right now, but it's still a challenge. So I don't know how are you feeling about it? How are you handling?
Speaker 2:it. Yeah, I think it's the same thing as you're saying, that you literally go to say the word guilt and that's what's in my head. It's one of those conditions as women that runs so freaking deep that we do have to keep a magnified glass on it. Honestly, right, like, oh, there it is again. Oh, there it is again. Um, but in a nourishing way. That's not judging, right, and so, yes, it is in a way that you can say, okay, this is valid, I'm evolving, it's okay to want this.
Speaker 2:You know, we talk all the time on the show about how we can talk to our ego. Right, these are ego things, right, it's just like, oh, the world's going to, you know, around me is going to fall apart if I tend to me Like, no, it's actually not, it's actually going to run a lot smoother when you're feeling, you know, top notch because you tuned into that. So, yeah, I think that's what it is is really being able to look at. And you know, part three of the module really talks about, like you said, communication, right, and so, again, it's that self-talk. You know, the more we can tap into catching ourselves and using and reframing, tap into affirmations, whatever it is that feels helpful and supportive and to know it's not like all or nothing.
Speaker 2:I think that's the piece, too, that gets kind of us tangled up in this right. It's like, oh well, if I didn't pencil myself in then I guess I can't do it the whole month. Well, no, you just forgot last week. You still can do this right. So, yeah, I think those are really important factors and I love that we did this and kind of came to that piece of like wow, it's not just about relationships outside of us, it really is about tapping into the boundaries within.
Speaker 1:I love it. This is fun and I know for those of the like listeners, if you haven't listened to module one and module two, like, we'll make sure to link them in. I just had that download where I was like I should put the links to each module in there, um, our recap of them, but does it. So I think it's a good spot for us to wrap. This has been a great conversation and I think it's it's just so cool to see how meaningful these courses and these activities can be. This course and all of our activities, excuse me, but says we're definitely curious how you're feeling about this topic of healthy boundaries. What came up for you? What could you relate to? Do you feel like having these guided activities and reflection opportunities would help you release fear and shift into feeling more confident in setting the boundaries you have been wanting? Do you feel a little sweaty or does it feel sticky just thinking about it? Because so far, setting boundaries has felt hard.
Speaker 1:We want to remind you that our Shifting from Hustle course was created just for this. It gets to be easy. So as we wrap today, we leave you with this to help you decide on if this course is for you. Do you find yourself saying yes when you really mean no. Come join us. We are 100% going to help you respond to any previous guilt or shoulds that come up and worry that you're setting yourself up for failure or these boundaries aren't going to be accepted. We know that this is power to help you get out of the loop of yes to all the things to create your most joy-filled life with more ease, even if it's too many yeses. So come check out this easy to move through self-paced course right in our Patreon community. Each module has a bite-sized video with us as your coaches, a podcast episode and a deep dive workbook tool to help guide your way. Are you ready? Follow the link in the show notes and join us. We'll see you there notes and join us.
Speaker 2:We'll see you there. We want to welcome you to tune in, stay close and grow with us. Come feel empowered inspired and connected.
Speaker 1:Check the show notes to follow us and, of course, we'd love for you to take us on social media and you share what lands for you.
Speaker 2:Until next time, breathe on purpose, stay curious and trust your intuition.