If My Plate Could Talk

Hello, conscious fear. Welcome to if your plate could talk. It's another opportunity for us to join together, be in collective community, to stop, to breathe, to really reflect on all things, life maybe on what your week has been like and what you need. But most importantly, recognizing what you're holding, what you're carrying, and if there are any parts of yourself that need something more, something less, if there's anything that is in need of greater alignment in your life. Right. Come in, say good morning to someone and let us know where you are in the world.

I am currently at home in Charlotte, North Carolina, but really excited because I'm heading to the mountains of Montreate for a wonderful, wonderful time to step away, to restore, which even just saying that word out loud is so incredible. Good morning to all who are here. Hello, Luke. So I want to focus today on a couple of things, but let's start how we normally do. Rate your week for me. Where are you? Right one, it's been a horrible, awful week. Hello, Montreal. Hello, upstate. Hello, Ohio. Hello, Minnesota.

Hello, Ottawa. Isn't it amazing? Hello, New Jersey. And ten, it's been the most fabulous week of your life. If I'm honest, my week has been like this, right? It's been all over the place. But that's the beauty of reflecting on where you are, because you get to decide, where am I now and where do I want to go? But it's also an opportunity to look at the effort that you've put in, hello, West Virginia. To move from one place to the other and to always remind yourself, hello, Charleston and Fayetteville that you're never stuck where you are unless you choose to stay there.

Which also kind of brings me to our focus of today. Releasing your responsibility. What's up, Detroit? From people who are not doing their own work, releasing your responsibility, or the level of responsibility that you're placing on yourself for things that really aren't yours to carry. Right? We talk about our tangible plate, we talk about our metaphorical plate. And sometimes we can keep all of these things on our plate out of the goodness of our heart, out of excitement, and it gets too heavy.

Here's the bottom line. If you don't remember anything else that I say, I want you to remember this. It is not your responsibility to take care of everyone and everything around you. It is not your responsibility to take care of everyone and everything around you. Even if you are a parent, if you are an entrepreneur, even as a caretaker, whatever it may be, there's still a balance between you taking care of yourself and recognizing when it's time to relinquish or loosen your grip and let go of some of the responsibility that you're putting on yourself for trying to outwork someone else or outwork a system that has decided that it doesn't want to change.

A lot of times here on Fridays, we kind of interject as well. Where does grief come in all of this? I want you to think about how hard it is to watch someone or something not be what it could. And you're putting in all this effort, and you're doing all of the things that you can only to find that it's depleting you and that there's a level of resistance even in terms of grief, sadness and anxiety. Some of the anxiety that we keep, a good bit of the anxiety that we keep is the pressure that we're putting on ourselves to make sure that we're everything for everybody, and we always need to be a certain way for them.

And it's exhausting and it's too much. It's not your responsibility to be everything for everyone. And doing so will actually put you in a situation where you will feel depleted, where you may feel like you can't keep up, where it may convince you that you're not enough. You are more than enough. If you're managing what's on your plate. I often have you do this. I wanna have you do it again today. If you're writing with something, take a big circle, put it in front of you. Take a few minutes while I continue to talk, and start writing down what's on your metaphorical plate.

What are you holding in your mind? What are the goals that you have that are weighing on you? What are the responsibilities? What are the concerns that you have for the other people and other things in your life? And it doesn't mean not to be caring, but there's a balance between caring for other people and taking on what needs to be theirs. And how do you find that balance? And what do you notice that other people have put on your plate? Because sometimes we're also surrounded by people who want us to be responsible for the work that they're not doing.

We're in a system that says, I don't want to do this, but we want you to break your back and bend over as far as you can to get it all done at your expense. And then, as you notice what's there, I want you to consider what needs to come off, whether that's temporarily, so that you can breathe, so that you can recover, or what needs to come off in its entirety because it's really not within your control. No matter how much planning and thinking you do, you can't change it. And so what does it look like to loosen your grip, to let it go, to mark it off, to give it back to the places that it belongs, so that you can rise up lighter, so that your heart rate can start to slow down, so that you can feel like you have the energy to pour into the people that matter to you most.

Because when we have too much on our plate, it changes what we have available, not only for ourselves, but for the people that we find important. What needs to come off of your plate? Where do you need to give yourself permission and where do you need to communicate to that person or that system? Something needs to change, or. I realize that I've been holding on to this in a way that isn't healthy for me. So if you see that, I don't know, talk about it to the same degree that I used to, if you see that as you share with me, I become more of a listener than a fixer, don't take that personal.

I'm renegotiating. I'm rebalancing what I can hold so that I can make sure that I can show up for myself and all the people and the responsibilities that I have. Another thing to consider is give people resources. Sometimes people come to you because they trust you and they care about you. But you may not be the resource that you need. You cannot be everything to everybody, and it is not your responsibility to take care of everything and everyone. But you can say, but I'm happy to sit with you or show you how you can find some of the resources that you need that will be able to help you.

Even as a therapist, I draw a beautiful boundary in line between friends that want free therapy and friends that we're just exchanging and sharing about life, because I can only hold so much on even my own plate. And that's a huge aspect of making sure that we are reflecting and assessing the level of our well being. In order for me to be well, my plate has to stay balanced. And that can change based on how I am feeling physically, how I'm feeling mentally, what's happening in the life of those who are close to me.

Financial challenges and struggles. Even when you're working on a new initiative or goal or trying to produce something in terms of business, it requires you to go. If I'm going to start putting extra energy and emphasis here, something in the other areas of my life has to be negotiated. And that's something we don't want it to be. You. What I don't want you to take off of your plate is you. And the things that you do that are so important for your personal welfare almost want you to like, if you're comfortable, put your hand on your heart and say to yourself, either out loud or in your mind, I will not take myself off my plate.

I will not take myself off my plate. Or maybe you need to say, I'm going to put myself back on my plate. The world will not fall apart if I put myself back on my plate. You make the message yours. You decide which words you need, what resonates with you, but you get the point. As you move forward from this moment, I want you to continue to think about what's on your plate and how is it impacting what's on your physical plate. Are you noticing shifts and changes and how you're nourishing your body?

Are you noticing cravings for things that you've given up and released as a part of your life due to what you're feeling? Those cravings are messengers, and we always want to listen. And if you've made choices that you feel like don't align with where you are and what you want, forgive yourself. You're human. And then move back to a place that feels like it's more in alignment with what you say that you desire for yourself, unapologetically. And remember, you cannot be everything to everyone. And it is not your responsibility to take care of everyone and everything that's in your life.

As always, I'm so glad you chose to come today. I love just the collective time of us being together and sharing, giving hearts and all the different things that are important. Take care of yourself. You are all you have. And no one knows what you need more than you. So fill your own cup first. And then, as you operate through life, operate from your overflow. I will see you soon. Have a good one. You, our.