122: Redefining Self-Care Through Setting Boundaries

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If you have been listening to us for a while , it would be so appreciated if you would go leave us five stars wherever you are listening to podcasts . Hannah and I have been riding out this mindfully moody vibe for almost two and a half years now , and we do this because we love sharing our truths with the world . Welcome , kat , to the show .

We love sharing our truths with the world . We love being vulnerable and opening up and just getting into all of the juiciness that life has to offer and bringing that to just a wider audience . And bringing that to just a wider audience . We are just focused on that .

Our truth , our authenticity , our vulnerability and all of the other stuff is just whatever to us , because we are here , because we're called to be , so thank you for being called to listen today . I'm going to do a solo episode today because Hannah and I have been getting into a new rhythm with Mindfully Moody .

We put our mini mood Friday series on pause for a little bit . We both have a lot going on in our lives . We have so much abundance of love , joy , peace , happiness through business ventures , relationships , just all of the things that we have going on .

So we're just refocusing ourselves in various ways , but we are keeping our Monday episodes , weekly Trust and believe we will be here . So make sure you also subscribe so you can get all of our latest episodes delivered right to you .

So I am going to come on , as I always do in my solo episodes , and speak about what is on my heart , and I am coming off right now of about nine days . I'm on .

This is day nine of being sick , y'all being sick and it has been rough , and I've been going through not only physical illness but with all of the astrological things happening in our universe right now . I've been going through it with that . I've been having ego deaths . I've been just riding out some shit over here .

So I want to talk today about redefining what self-care means to me and how I feel about self-care and my journey with self-care , and I'm sure it'll spur off to many things . I'm really just channeling . Whatever is meant to come up today will come up .

And yeah , the first thing that I want to just be real and raw about is that I have not been getting into my spiritual practices in the last let's say , month in the way that I typically do . Typically , I keep a really consistent spiritual practice , usually daily , if not daily , at least every other day .

It kind of morphs , sometimes it's meditation , sometimes it's breath work , sometimes it's praying , sometimes it's yoga , sometimes it's a mix of things , and I just kind of surrender to whatever is meant to me .

That's been a big part of my femininity journey is not trying to be as regimented and particular about everything , because that was definitely me and my wounded masculine , because that was definitely me and my wounded masculine . But I haven't really been having any sort of consistency with spiritual practices and it's been weighing on me .

It's been weighing on me but it also , in another way , has not been weighing on me because of all of the work that I've done on myself to know that spiritual practices are not what make me spiritual . So now I'm redefining self-care and spiritual practices and all these things in my life because I need to .

I have gained new information , I have healed in various ways , I have come to new takeaways about things , and I think that that's the beauty of growth and evolving . And when you have that growth and evolving , you have to redefine things for yourself .

So how I used to think about self-care was very action oriented , right , like meditating , breathwork , yoga , skin care , you know , going to the spa , reading a book , taking time for myself , putting on a face mask , like all of those kind of things . You know .

Going on a walk , going to do some sort of action , going to spiritual events , going to therapy , going to coaching , like all of those things as self-care and 100% . Those things are self-care and I will continue to use those things in my self-care routines , in the practices that I have for myself . And it's not a or , it's an and .

And I have started to redefine the way that I think about self-care in terms of boundaries , both internal and external , the way that I talk to myself , the way that I talk to other people , self-reflection One that has never really been on my list of self-care but now is , which is rest .

So I have started to redefine what self-care means to me and , as I've thought about this . What I've really come to is that self-care means tending to myself in the way that I need to in that moment , using my inner wisdom to tune into what I need from a self-care perspective .

So if that means that I'm trying to tune into my wisdom and I'm not being led to go sit down in your altar and meditate for 30 minutes , then I'm not going to do it and old me would just push , push , push , push into it , force it , try to show up , because if I didn't show up then I'm not worthy because I didn't do what I said I was going to do .

Right , but in reality I'm doing whatever I need to do in the moment .

So this nine days that I've been sick which has been really challenging for me because I've just been having to kind of sit around , not really do much , not achieve much , and usually I'm a very achievement based person it's allowed me to come to the realization that I don't need to be so freaking critical of the things that I do on a day to day basis ,

because you know what else is self-care ? Tending to yourself when you're sick , not pushing yourself to go to the gym when you're sick , not pushing yourself to , you know , go to work when you're sick .

Today I'm actually home from work and I'm just sitting down and getting the opportunity to record some content because I'm like , let me just talk about what I'm going through in the moment versus trying to curate this particular experience . So self-care to me is nurturing myself in the moment and what I realized today .

I had a really great coaching session with a friend of mine who's also a coach and he coached me and he helped me come to this idea of all of these different self-care acts that I do , and whether it be action oriented or kind of internal whatever and what I realized is that external boundaries are my anchor point to self-care .

What I mean by that is , when my external boundaries fall to the wayside , I'm not going to be . All of my other self-care falls to the wayside , including internal boundaries , including rest , including meditation , spiritual practices , all of those things because I have now overcommitted myself so much or taken on other people's stuff . I'm an empath .

I very easily receive other people's things . Definitely , becoming a coach has helped me significantly at this , because it helps me shield , it helps me not take on the energy of others or the issues of others .

However , that doesn't work all the time and I still sometimes do , and so this idea of external boundaries being my anchor point for all of the rest of my self-care is kind of like really rocking my world in a good way and also in a way that makes me do a little bit of a reality check .

Like , okay , if I'm showing up for every other person in my life in a certain way to where I'm over committing myself or I'm doing this or I'm doing that , then I'm not able to show up for Sarah in the way that I need to show up for Sarah , because I know that when my cup is depleted and I'm literally picturing a cup right now with a hole in the

bottom and it's like you're trying to pour water , and I'm literally picturing a cup right now with a hole in the bottom and it's like you're trying to pour water I'm literally picturing a cup right now with a hole in the bottom and it's like you're going right , I'm not able to pour from the cup into anyone .

So that's when I see myself getting resentment for other people , getting frustrated easily having all of these , you know , getting overwhelmed by all the tasks in my life .

So when I do not keep my external boundaries in place , my world gets rocked in a negative way and it ricochets into all different areas of my life my business , my romantic relationship , my family relationships , my friend relationships , literally all parts of my life .

And most important part of my life my self-care , my routines , my things that kind of screw the word routine , because I don't even know if I'm resonating with that right now but my practices , whatever the things that keep me me , the things that keep me grounded , the things that keep me being the most optimal version of myself , the things that keep me me , the

things that keep me grounded , the things that keep me being the most optimal version of myself , the self that I desire to be on an everyday basis .

So I am now getting to the point where I'm really reflecting , like , what external boundaries do I need to put into place so that I can make sure that I am showing up for Sarah in the way that Sarah deserves to be showed up for , because for years I didn't show up for myself at all .

I didn't show up for myself in a loving way for many , many years in my past . I mean , I was my biggest critic .

I tore myself to shreds for so many years of my life and I've worked so hard to get to the point where I don't do that anymore and that I have rewired those parts of my brain that are so , so , so , so , so hypercritical of me and I'm not going to let my lack of enforcing external boundaries to take me there .

And when I think of external boundaries , I don't just think of doing too much for other people that's a part of it but I also think of letting people affect me in a way that is going to shift my mood , letting people affect me in a way that is going to shift my mood . So I work in person with a lot of people .

I come into contact with a lot of people on a daily basis and I'm so sensitive to energy that I can sometimes just bam , pick up on someone's . They have a negative mood and then , like I see myself taking on that negative mood Now I see myself becoming more critical of someone and it like shifts my emotions .

It shifts the way that I react , morphs into how someone else would react versus how I would react when I'm in a grounded , centered place . So I also mean things like that of external boundaries , and it's no one's responsibility to shield me or to shield you from their own shit , unless you're asking them to right .

Like , people are allowed to have negative emotions , people are allowed to have a bad day . I don't have to take on their bad day , right , they didn't say I'm having a bad day . Now you get here with me and have a bad day too .

I mean , of course that happens sometimes , but I have the ability to control my reactions to things , so I don't need to jump on someone else's bad day . I don't need to jump on someone else's negativity . I can create my own experience . I can create my own safe space . So I'm also talking about that when I talk about external boundaries .

And as soon as I start to kind of let that go , it's just a slippery slope . Then I don't have internal boundaries , and internal boundaries are also a lot of self-care for me , and I think of internal boundaries as really being governed by my highest self internally . Like you know , when your ego just starts to go off , you're on a rampage .

You have , like this big , you know thought series , patterns . I mean , we have so many freaking thoughts , y'all you know what I mean . And now you're going down that road and my , my highest self , my internal boundaries are my highest self , being like , hey , babe , let's come back , let's come back , let's . Let's get over here , let's get centered .

Let's come back , let's get over here , let's get centered , let's get grounded . Let's remember that's not a path that we even need to go down and we don't play in that sandbox anymore . We have elevated from this and let's move into your safe space , your internal boundaries , your container . Maybe internal boundaries isn't even the right way to say it .

I'm thinking more of like a container that feels really soothing and peaceful and nurturing , because that's where I want to spend my time in my mind . But if I'm already taking a lot of external signals , then my internal signals are getting getting all wacky as well .

So boundaries , creating containers , are basically my top self-care right now is what I'm coming to the realization of , because then , if I keep those things in place , then I have the time to do my spiritual practices .

I don't feel like I'm sacrificing showing up for someone else or I'm sacrificing my time in a way that I don't want to sacrifice it when I'm showing up with my boundaries in a positive way . Hopefully you're vibing with what I'm saying right now , because this is really just me processing out loud as well .

But I feel like self-care can literally mean whatever you want it to . It can literally mean whatever you want it to mean , and that's the beautiful , beautiful , beautiful thing about self-care is that it is specific to you . Self-care can also be coming home from work , scrolling TikTok for four hours and eating a bag of chips and a tub of Ben and Jerry's .

Hey , y'all , I've been there . I've been there . Okay , sometimes you need that . Sometimes you need to turn off your brain , flip a switch . We are humans . We are stimulated so much on an everyday basis which is why we're so into TikTok because we got to keep that stimulation going .

And as an overstimulated girly which I used to not recognize as overstimulation , I should do another episode on that . I get overstimulated so easy . Like , oh , I get into a grocery store , y'all . I'm literally so overstimulated I .

And then I start getting like kind of like irritable and I'm like anxiety and like all of these things start coming up for me and , yeah , so I'm overstimulated . I need to be able to turn off my brain . I need to be able to do things that make me feel good , that keep me grounded , that center me , and you need to find those things for you .

But they're not only those actions , it's also the way that you treat yourself right . Self-care is also , you know , when you're finding yourself in a negative spiral of thought , picking yourself out from under it , figuring out how to get into a new cycle of thought .

Self-care is getting up in the morning and making yourself a cup of coffee and sitting for 30 seconds and enjoying what it feels like the first sip of coffee in the morning . So many different things are self-care . So many different things are self-care . So many different things can nurture yourself . It's really a mindset .

It's a mindset switch of how am I going to prioritize myself and the things that I need , the things that make me feel good ? It could be just going on a drive in your car and putting on your favorite song on the way to work , like whatever . If you shift your mindset of this is a way that I'm nourishing myself . That's all it really is .

So anything can be self-care . As I'm petting my cat right now . Who's sleeping next to me ? Because I'm recording this on my couch ? Never recorded on my couch . Who's sleeping next to me ? Because I'm recording this on my couch ? Never recorded on my couch .

So find what works for you is the moral of this and I am finding what works for me , and self-care is never selfish . It is selfless because you cannot pour from an empty cup and I know for myself that when my cup is empty , the people in my life are not getting the best version of Sarah .

But when my cup is getting filled , I'm more creative , I'm more grateful , I'm more present with people in my life , with things happening in my life , and it is just a more joyful experience to exist when your cup is fuller like duh right .

But it's just really about taking that time and intentionality being intentional with the way that you are communicating with yourself and communicating with the world , so that you can make sure that you are communicating with yourself and communicating with the world , so that you can make sure that you are prioritizing time to take that care for yourself .

And it's also not time that you are prioritizing your energy to make sure that you are first feeding within versus outwardly . Thank you so much for listening to this episode . If you are vibing with me , I have some extremely exciting news . I am hosting a retreat in the summer with one of my dearest friends , coach healer extraordinaire Danielle .

She's been on the podcast three times now . So if you've been a Mindfully Moody listener , you know her and we're hosting a retreat together in the United States location , tbd , and that is such a part of the fun of

it . If you are a woman who is ready to surrender to the unknown , is ready to awaken to your power , do we have a retreat for you . We are going to be doing workshops , sacred ceremonies , yoga , breath work , meditation , ecstatic dance , ice baths literally all the incredible things that you desire to experience when you go to a retreat . You will get it .

On this retreat , you will get women who are like-minded , who are all meant , divinely meant , to come to this retreat in this part of the world at this time , who are all destined to meet together to embark on the healing journey of a lifetime . This will literally transform your life .

So , if you are interested , I am dropping the website with the application in the show notes . We would be so honored to have you apply and we are so excited . There's going to be more information coming soon . We are working really hard on putting together this magical retreat and we will be so honored to have you there .

So definitely go apply in the link and we will be back with you next Monday . Love you so much and have a great week .