Me Time ✨

Hello, everybody. Happy Sunday. Jean, coming to you live from her car. I'm trying a JC moment here where I'm popping in for a little me time. Coming in a little early today. It's a beautiful, sunny day here in Minneapolis. Hello, how are you doing today? Is it fraught fruit? Thanks for joining. My name is Jean Nichols. I'm really excited to be here today for some me time. I'm sitting here in my car. This is my car day. I just left brunch with some friends who are traveling in. Hello, Jules. Happy Sunday.

I'm also dialing in through my phone in my car. So if you can't hear me for some reason, type in the chat and I'll try to change the program a little. But I'm excited to be here with you guys today. Always excited on Sundays to pop in here and talk about me time. Today I wanted to focus a little bit on taking space. And what I love about that is I've mentioned on Sundays before that I have been trying really hard to allow Sundays to my unstructured day. I have a lot of structure in my days. On a normal week, on a normal day of the week, I personally am a very unstructured person.

Meaning I like. I like to just make it up as I go sometimes. And so Sundays are the day that I've designated that I'm very intentional about what I say yes to on any given Sunday. Other days of the week, if it's something that I have to do for work or I have to do for friends or family, I will make sure to fit that in. But I have started to create a boundary, which I'm not great at, that Sundays are me day. And so if I say yes to doing something, such as subbing to teach a spin class or doing a sound bath.

Hello, Mel Meyers. Happy Sunday. Then I will do that with intention and purpose. And if I feel like I need that Sunday to just be a Sunday for me, then I'm giving myself permission to say no. So today, as an example, I didn't sub a spin class. We have lots of instructors that can instead. And I had some friends pop into town from out of town that randomly didn't know what their schedule was. But we're gonna go to brunch. And I got a text at 1130 saying they were going to brunch at twelve and I said yes.

And so I took some time to see some friends I haven't seen in several months to go to have brunch with them and then pop out and come hang out with you guys today. So setting boundaries and being able to give yourself permission to say yes to you and no, or maybe to others and everything else is something that takes time and practice I don't know about. For you, Jules, or Mel or fruits, how are you with setting boundaries for your time? How are you? Do you set boundaries, or do we often feel, or do you often feel compelled to say yes all the time or most of the time?

I would love to hear from you or anybody on replay. Boundaries have been a journey for me, and I'm just going to go back to that as it relates to self care, and I'll tell you an interesting story. So my mom, when she was living, she lived in a town about an hour away from me, and one of my best friends from high school lived in the same town. And she would my hair. And this is gonna sound silly, but I would drive an hour every eight weeks to go get my hair cut from my girlfriend, but it had nothing to do with getting my hair cut.

Jewel is not very good. I feel guilty saying no if I know I can fit it in. I am sore with you. So I would go see my girlfriend every eight weeks to get a haircut. I would drive an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, depending on traffic. To go see her and get my hair cut again had nothing to do with my haircut. But it was the only time that her and I could figure out where we could just have time together, just the two of us. And sometimes I would go see my mom on those trips, and sometimes I really didn't have the time to.

And I would come home, and my mom heard that I was in town, but I didn't stop by. And she called me, and she was very upset. And we got into one of our first fights as an adult. Like, I really don't. I feel lucky for not fighting often with my parents. But this one was. This one was a fight. She was angry that I didn't stop to see her. She needed me to pick up some things for her. And I was angry that I didn't have time to myself, that I could just have for myself. And at the end of a couple of phone calls where we actually hung up on each other, it was.

It was a moment, and we were both hot. We let it sit for a couple of days, and then what happened was my mom and I got on the phone together, and she understood that I had a need sometimes to see my girlfriend. And that didn't always mean that I had time to see her as well, because I lived an hour and a half away, and I worked an hour and a half away. And so. m. On a Monday night. So it wasn't like, a convenient time. So we set a boundary that if I was coming to St. Cloud, I would let her know, but if I couldn't see her, I would let her know that, too.

So we could figure out kind of just how our relationship could evolve and we could still both enjoy each other in our space. But she understood that I needed to have some boundaries for myself. And that was my first big lesson around boundaries. And it was super hard because it was my mom, and I love her. But I realized in that moment, and my mom realized in that moment, too, that it was okay for our own mental health to set some boundaries. And it was really, actually good for our relationship as a mother and daughter to set some boundaries and be able to acknowledge that for one another eventually.

Fast forward. I moved my mom down here to Minneapolis, where I live. And. And then every Sunday, I would carve out time. That would be time that I would go visit with her, and we would have an hour or two. And if I couldn't, if I knew I couldn't make it the following week, I would just give her a note in advance so that she knew that because I was taking a trip. So boundaries are really hard. And, Jules, I think you said it great, because we feel guilty saying no if we can somehow fit it in. But I'm going to turn the story around a little bit.

What if we were the third person asking ourself to fit ourselves in? Now, that is kind of a word twist right there. But if we think about ourselves, I, Jean, as someone requesting time of Jean, can I fit that in? And when I started to think about boundaries. Hi, JC. JC just finished the Boston marathon, and he raised $10,000 for a charity. So excited for you. So when I think about setting boundaries and I think about myself as a third person, as somebody that I can ask myself to do something for, it changes the story a little bit about how I set time and creating boundaries so that if I, Jean, need a nap.

I never take naps. I'm horrible at naps because I can do something for somebody in the amount of time that I might take a nap. But what I've been really working hard on, especially over the last six months, as I've been going through my own grief process, as I've mentioned, after having lost my mom, and a year prior, losing my dad, setting boundaries and setting space where I can say, no, I can't do that for you because I'm going to go do a workout because that's for my mental health. That's for me.

But after I get done with that, if I have time, then maybe I'll still say yes to helping. It would be maybe you, Jules, or insert my boss, or my friend. Now, we might not always be able to set boundaries for ourselves, but if we can carve out and create the new habit of setting boundaries and saying yes to ourselves sometimes. First. Another really good example is I'm a horrible eater. Let me clarify. I love food. I love to eat. But when I'm working Monday through Friday and I wake up in the morning, I will wake up, walk my dog, then I'll feed my dog.

And then, because I co own a cycling studio, I might be getting asked a bunch of questions from my team. So I always check in on the team before I start my client work. And then the day goes on, and somewhere inside of there, I forget to eat. Or I will go to the microwave later, open it up, and realize I had started something to eat, but I never finished it. And so, for me, creating a new habit and creating a boundary, I'm going to pause for a second. Perks of being in the car. I am working really hard to set a boundary.

And using, I have this new whoops. Device that measures how much I sleep, how much strain I have. I've been practicing the habit of getting outside fresh light. Whether even if I'm walking my dog in the dark, I'm getting outside natural light first before I pick up a phone or device. So three out of five days during the week, I'm there. I'm not there every single day. But setting that boundary so that, oh, if I go to the refrigerator and I give my dog a carrot for a treat, I eat a carrot first. It sounds really silly, but setting boundaries that you are feeding yourself first, that you are allowing your mental health to come first, you are setting a boundary that says, today I don't have the emotional energy to help everyone.

So today I have to help myself, is really, really hard. It's hard for us as people, but it's hard for the people around us, because they are so used to us saying, yes, Jules, I set a boundary with my family that when I go for a walk, it's me time. Exactly. So maybe you take your phone, maybe you don't. Maybe they reach out, maybe they don't. But when people start to understand that you are setting a boundary for yourself. It does a couple of things. One, it shows them that you care about yourself, self care.

Two, it also inspires them, I found, to consider setting boundaries for themselves as well. Now, this isn't about being greedy or selfish or saying no, because we can just say no, right? It's about having the same respect for ourselves as individuals that we do for so many people in our life that we care about. So today, just again, reminding all of us that we are beautiful, compassionate, kind, bold, courageous, incredible humans. But our buckets are only so full. We only have so much that we can give before we have to refill and refuel.

I'm notorious for running on empty in my car because I feel like I can get one more mile. But if I think about my body as that vehicle, is that one more mile worth it? Or could I be doing one little bitty thing to refill my fuel tank so that I have a little bit more to give to everybody around me? So I'm going to let you sit with that for today. If you have thoughts or questions, I'd love to hear more about boundaries you've set, if you feel like you're successful at it. Some days I am, some days I'm not.

And because I have it in my brain that I'm working on this, even on the days that I'm not, I don't have to judge myself for not being good at it. It's about saying, oh, why was that more important than making breakfast today? So it allows me the opportunity to pause, reflect, consider. And if you're an astrology person, today is the pink full moon, and it's a scorpio moon, just in case you wanted to know a little bit more. But what this moon is about for us, it's. It's about going inside. It's about allowing ourselves to have that deep emotional connection.

Hi, Shannon. So that we can release whatever it is that we're holding on to. It's the springtime, it's the time of year where the water, if you have snow, we didn't have snow this year, but it would be the time of year where the ice melts on the river Mississippi. It flips and dredges up all this stuff from the bottom so that we can release it and let it go. So working with boundaries, working with a full moon, it's really about creating an opportunity for us to go a little bit deeper so we can release something and create space for something else.

So when we set boundaries for ourselves. When we invest time in ourselves, we refuel our own buckets and we create space so that we can explore our own possibilities and inspire others to do the same around us. So I hope you all have an incredible rest of your Sunday. It's going to be in the sixties today here in Minneapolis, so I'm going to go grab my sneakers and go for a run and I hope you all have the best. If you want to learn more about the moons, let me know. I'll post something in the comments today about what to do with a little pink moon energy and I look forward to seeing you again.

I'm here on Mondays at 1130. Check out JC. He's amazing as well. And Luke does motivation Monday. It's a great way to kick off your week right at the beginning of the day. He always has something fun to say and he plays great music, so check out everybody. They're all fantastic. I look forward to seeing you all. I hope you all have a great weekend. Bye.