Episode 261: The Hardest Part of Taking Care of Yourself

Episode Transcript

Steve Haase  0:01  
Welcome to the Superabound podcast with master coaches, Erin Aquin and Steve Haase where business owners like you learn tools that help you clarify vision, clear up static, and overcome challenges, you are listening to episode number 261. The hardest part of taking care of yourself. Welcome, everybody. So nice to have you here. I'm feeling much better than last time that we recorded the episode, which is always a positive thing. Health is wealth, as they say, as I like to say, as I like to practice. And that's actually the topic of this week is how to actually take great care of yourself. Zooming in on what we've determined to be the hardest part about that very crucial activity for business owners, for leaders, when you've got responsibility on your shoulders, oftentimes, you are the last person in line to be taken care of, but you need to switch that around, make sure that you are actually doing your work in a sustainable, healthful, inspired way. I'm here with my co founder, my lovely partner, Erin a Quinn, here.

Erin Aquin  1:18  
Hi. Okay. So I feel like we've been building up to this over the last couple of weeks, you know, we talked about why great leadership and ample money really matter in your business and your life. And like why we can't, we can't avoid those things and just hope they get better without putting in consistent effort and really paying attention to what's happening with both of those areas. And last time, we talked about avoiding burnout, how it's not just as simple as getting some rest sometimes or like booking a day off once a month, that there's really some elements that you have to take deeper, especially if you are the person generating the outcomes in your business or on your team. And so when we were talking about this, we actually had a session today with some of our clients, we do a periodic co working session inside the Superabound collective, and I was telling our clients that we actually have decided to do a five day I don't want to call it a challenge. It's more like a journey, where we're going to be teaching, the way that we think about looking after ourselves as leaders, as business owners, we're really going to be offering some tools that we will dive into more deeply inside of our book. But who is saying this specifically for my private clients, it is a, a toolkit I want them to have, because sometimes it comes up in coaching and we work on it. But it's something I think we need to be consciously aware of, and put attention on whether or not it's something that they need coaching around. And that is what we call the tending triad, which is basically our way of talking about self care or self investing and the important pieces to make sure that if you're going to light an important lantern and your business or your life, you need a fire. To do that. You don't want to spend so much time working towards something only to have your own fire snuffed out or be burned out. So perfectly named when you arrive. So we're going to be doing that coming up inside the superabound collective in October of 2023. If you are not part of the Superabound collective, please go join that as soon as you can. At besuperbound.com/collective You'll get all the details, all the dates, all the sessions, it's absolutely free. It is a gift that we are giving you because I know how much this has come up for so many of my clients who have support, so I can't even imagine what's happening for people who don't have consistent coaching and this toolkit, so I wanted to say that to start and today we're going to talk about the hardest part. We're gonna cut to the chase, there is one part of looking after yourself that I think is hard for 99.9% of people I've ever worked with. Definitely I'm in that boat too. That is what we are going to talk about briefly today.

Steve Haase  4:49  
So the tending triad is rich in lessons and tools that you can take for your life to lead your team and grow your business and Ace stainable inspired way. The one component though, that people tend to struggle the most with is what we call the personal filter. Another way of thinking about this is having good boundaries, we've done episodes on boundaries in the past, because it is such a hot button topic, people think they're going to be mean, if they set up a boundary, or if they have boundaries, and they will miss important information or important connections, there's so much FOMO around boundaries or wanting to be liked, that people will just let them be so porous. The alternative, though, is actually just being rigid and cutting yourself off and saying, you know, I need my space, I'm just saying no to everything, right? I'm ghosting everyone, I'm canceling all my social media accounts and going into a hole. And that's not really sustainable. And I don't know too many people who can pull that off with grace and really feel good about that approach, either. So the key really, is to find that space between totally cutting yourself off from the world, and letting everybody run all over you. Yeah, because

Erin Aquin  6:06  
I think on paper, everybody would agree that we all need better personal filters. I know so many people who have, you know, boundary troubles, and they know that they quote unquote, should have better boundaries. But the reason that that is not established, and that doesn't become a core pursuit for a lot of people is what we're talking about today, which is the hardest part of taking care of yourself doing what is needed, for your own well being like, I think I think that sounds really simple. But if you happen to be a person that has a porous personal filter, then what that actually is going to look like is learning how to say no to the things you used to say yes to, you know, if you have a standing dinner date, with people you've known for a long time, and you always just RSVP yes to that dinner date. Working on your personal filter, doing what's actually good for you, means you might start to question that immediate, yes, that you give, and start to really ask yourself, if this particular event is what you need is good for you, is aligned with what you want? And what you need. If you're a business owner and a leader, chances are you're busy. Do you need that night with those people? In your mind? Is that good for you? Do you feel good when you're there? Do you not? It's really important to ask these kinds of questions. And it's pretty much the hardest part of taking good care of yourself. Because the reason most most of us don't ask those questions is, we might be afraid of the answer.

Steve Haase  8:08  
And it's one thing to get the answer. And it's another thing to actually follow the answer. Because the moment you let's say, here the answer to the question, should I be continuing my presence at these dinners? Maybe the answer's no. To actually say okay, I'm going to be bowing out means you will rock the boat, you will ruffle feathers, people will be gasp upset with you. Maybe, or maybe not. Right? The there's a cognitive bias called the spotlight effect, which says that, we assume that our experience is magnified in the eyes of others, or that people are really thinking about us, they're really looking at us. Oftentimes, they're thinking about themselves, they're looking at themselves. And yet, because we're afraid of what others will think of us, we actually continue with things that are not good for us, hoping to keep things smooth. But what it really does is it makes things rougher for you. And in the end, you're not even being yourself in these relationships that you say are so important to you. So you're kind of lying in both directions, all in the hopes that you'll be, you know, keeping things smooth with relationships, but it's an energy suck. So when you're considering what to do about your personal filter, how to set better boundaries, the question of how is the energy flowing? is a good one to consider. If you notice that you're dreading the answer, or that you're kind of out of integrity with what that answer might be. Then what you'll notice is that the energy is lower, it's diminished. It's not a yes, I want to be present with this group of people. It's a okay, I guess I'll do it. So paying attention to the energy will give you some clues into where you might be needing stronger personal filter.

Erin Aquin  10:09  
And I know there's also this like really trendy idea that people kind of toss out there a little flippantly in my opinion. Like, if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no, that is not what we're talking about. Because I think that that that adage sort of diminishes how hard it is for us to say no, for not even just to say no, but to even, to even use our mental energy to open Pandora's Box of the status quo, and examine things that we have just done out of obligation or routine. Or because of a dynamic that's been in place for a long time? Well, I think it's very important to do it, I think it's one of the hardest things on the path to taking great care of yourself, because it's going to take some mental energy, and honestly, often just doesn't feel good, doesn't feel good to open up the box and look at the status quo of like, okay, I've had dinner with these people, every month for 15 years. And now when I really look at whether I want to be there, it's actually a No, I actually now see, I say yes to these people, and then I dread that event for the rest of the month. And I sit there at that dinner, while they're gossiping while they're talking about nonsense. And I just want to crawl out of my skin the whole time, I can't wait to go home, it is not helping me along the path to my big vision. They don't care about my lanterns, like it's not an inspiring space for me, even though the end result of not giving your attention to that those relationships anymore might ultimately be a really good thing. In a moment of examining it, and maybe having a difficult conversation around it. It sucks. It really sucks.

Steve Haase  12:16  
And that's why so many people would rather just kick it down the line, like I'm, I'm not suffering too much. I'll just wait for things to change. And then you end up feeling powerless. Because you're putting your well being you're putting your schedule in somebody else's hands, and not even wanting to, of course, you're gonna feel stuck, you're gonna feel helpless. And so the price of feeling powerful, is being willing to have that difficult conversation. Honestly, though, it may not end up even being that difficult. Because if you're crawling out of your skin, chances are the people you're having dinner with are noticing it too. And if you bow out, hopefully, it would be, there'd be some understanding there. And if there isn't, then there's more confirmation that you were correct. And that was no longer something that is giving you energy and something that you want in your life.

Erin Aquin  13:18  
Yeah, that is really important. We sometimes just have to do uncomfortable things in order to like as an act of self respect. And just to be clear, this isn't to say, Oh, I'm going to push anything out of my life, that makes me a little uncomfortable. I think that sometimes that is the message. It's like, I'm just not going to look at anything or talk to anyone who I ever feel a blip of discomfort or ever have an emotion out. That's I think what you were talking about in the beginning, Steve, like that's going too far in another direction where you're kind of isolating yourself in a tower of protection, that's like maybe just too far. The distinction is you want to be conscious with your own energy, how you're spending it, where you're spending it, so that you're doing more of that's in alignment with your big vision with your lanterns. And you're just not like leaking energy, or wasting it on things that drag you down and don't have some kind of thread or connection to those things. So I heard this great talk by Christopher Penn Zak recently at an event. And he was just talking about like, yeah, sometimes we have to engage with things that make us uncomfortable. It's not about never feeling uncomfortable. It's more about understanding that sometimes the disturbance that you may feel about a situation or something in the world. We want to find the lesson in that And sometimes the lesson is, the disturbance that I am feeling right now is because I'm spending time with people who just are Recycling the Past, and I'm feeling a disruption. Because I could be spending that three hours working on something that's really important to me and lights me up. And I'm feeling the, the disconnect between where I want to be putting my energy and this particular situation that I've voluntarily signed up for.

Steve Haase  15:36  
And sometimes your filter is about things that have already happened, sometimes the, the way to take care of yourself, how you cut the cord, so to speak, with people or moments or events that are just sort of playing in your mind and zapping your energy. Internally, maybe someone said something nasty to you, or, you know, was rude. In a situation that's happened recently to us, we had a whole situation emerge, that took our energy for days. And eventually, after we had resolved it, we noticed that it was still lingering in our lives, even though we came to a decision. But that, you know, injustice was still present for us. And so rather than continuing to give it energy, and we decided with help from our friends and mentors, that we would actually just let that go away, right kind of create a a wall energetically between us and the offending party. And making that decision. Even though we didn't change anything externally, we didn't RSVP no to anything. But we did it internally, we took that situation, and we let it just be a no at the door of our minds knowing that even if someone is having very incorrect thoughts about us, that does not give them the right to be tossed and turned over in our hearts and minds. So I just want to open up the idea that taking care of yourself includes what you are spending your time thinking about talking about rehashing as the case might be, and that it could even be as simple as just metaphorically closing a door in your mind around that thing that you've come to resolution about, right? If you've consciously decided, alright, here's where I want to do, then you can let that go.

Erin Aquin  17:34  
It's probably the hardest thing about taking care of yourself. And the more you do it, the more self respect you will have. And I mean, actually, like the structure of your life will actually get easier. Because you're teaching people how to treat you as well. If this is a relational thing that's coming up for you, at work in your personal life. People will learn very quickly how to treat you, especially if they want you to RSVP Yes. Or keep the door open. And you know, that doesn't have to be out of anger or like you don't have to be a hard ass about it. It's just more knowing that if you have a superabound vision, you have bigger better things to worry about. Do not get sucked into other people's drama, their scarcity, their concern. And don't think you're getting sucked into other people's stuff, when it may actually just be that spotlight effect that Steve was talking about. We hope this was helpful. If you know that personal filter is an issue for you and you have a hard time resolving the the need for a good filter and better boundaries and actually doing it in your life. Our five day tending triad journey is for you. It is absolutely free. It is starting soon over in the superabound collective which you can join right now at the besuperabound.com/collective We hope to see you there. Take care

Transcribed by https://otter.ai