Self Care is a common topic in our society and here on this Podcast. However, it is always something we that can learn more on and implement into our life. One aspect of Self Care that is especially important is boundaries. Boundaries are important in all aspects of our lives so it only makes sense that we have boundaries when it comes to self care. Jen and Hilary talk about the importance of boundaries and how we put them in practice.
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Jen: Welcome to the Parents Place podcast with Hilary and Jen.
Hilary: Welcome to the Parents Place podcast. So Jen and I have an article that we wanted to share with you today. And per usual, we will obviously include it in our show notes so that you can access the full materials. But this is this article is about something that's you guys know. You've heard us talk about before at the Family Place we feel. Very strongly about and. If you have had interactions with the family place, whether that be as a staff or even as a client coming in and receiving our services, you know. This is one of our core foundations of what we do. But we're going to talk a little bit about self-care and particularly why we want to make sure that we have boundaries set up in regards to self-care because that is very important as well too. Before we do that though, Jen, I, I'll, I'll turn it to you. So I again, I know that a lot of you guys, a lot of our audience probably knows what self-care is, but maybe just to help clarify what do you think of when you think of self-care? What exactly? Is this concept?
Jen: I think of setting aside time for myself to do things that I enjoy being free or if I'm spending a little bit of money, you know, I think a lot of people think of, you know, the big things of self-care. Well, I don't do the big things of self care. Just because when I'm like, oh, let's go and do a spa day and then I see the price. I'm like, uh no. Ohh I do the little things that I enjoy. But also setting those boundaries of. OK, this is my time. And sometimes it's as simple as when I get home. I know my husband doesn't like it, but sometimes I get home and I'll just sit in the car for another 5 minutes and play a game on my phone or continue listening to my book that I was listening to on the way home. But that to me is self-care, just that 5, 5 more minutes to where it's just me. Every night I doodle when we're watching a TV show or whatnot. If I have the opportunity to doodle then I'm just sitting there the whole time and to me that just kind of calms me and gets me in that regulated space that I like. So to me, that's what self-care is. And I think during work as well, it's important to have self-care, but it's kind of tricky. You've got to have simple things that you can do throughout the day if it's chewing on a piece of gum or if it is putting on some music that's going to help you either perk up. Or, you know, I'm kind of uncomfortable here. So let's play some more subtle music. And so having those simple things that you can do throughout the day. To help you with your self-care, there is one thing that someone said to do and I tried it once and it was fabulous. I need to start doing it again. It's just laying in your office and putting your legs up on the floor or not up on the floor up on the wall for some reason. I don't know what it does, but it felt great.
Hilary: Like what the physical benefit is, I'm sure with your blood flow and whatnot, but.
Jen: Yeah, it was nice. I need to do it again.
Hilary: Right. I am excited for the day when I walk into your office and it looks like you're asleep and I'll be like, no, this is doing herself care. She's not taking a nap.
Jen: Just a couple of minutes with my legs up on the wall and yeah.
Hilary: You know, I first of all, I will tell you. Every single parent out there knows how glorious that solo time in the car is. So you are not alone. Because I think we've all done that right where we unbuckle the kids and we bring them in, and then we sit for just a few minutes in silence before we begin the craziness. Right.
Jen: Yeah.
Hilary: I actually really like that you brought up some very simple and small examples of self-care. And you know this article actually talked about it. You know, you joked about the spa, the spa trip, but that's one of the very first sentences in this article. And I'll read it because I think it's kind of funny and quirky. That, it says “often when we think of self-care, we picture a long, lazy day at the spa. A trip to Napa with friends or a blissed out yoga retreat, and it says these types of self-care are indeed nourishing experience that help us recharge, gain perspective, find inspiration, or just make time for fun. But have you ever noticed that the happy, relaxed vibes from vacations and other luxurious treats fade quickly.” And so I do. I think that there's a lot of people. That when they think about self-care, they tend to think big, right? And I'm stressed out. I'm overwhelmed. I better plan a weekend, get away so that I can recharge or, you know, I need to. Like you said, go to the spa and so I can completely rejuvenate myself and then I'll be fine. And for some, maybe they do have that luxury and maybe that is a component of the their self-care. And I'm not saying that that is a bad thing by any means.
Jen: Lucky you.
Hilary: Yeah, exactly right. If you have a means to do so, that's great. That make me let me tag along with you, right? But for most of us, we may not have. That may have not may not have that opportunity. And so I appreciate that when you describe self-care, you keep it very simplistic, right. It's something very small that we can do throughout our day. Because the reality I think is that. I think where a lot of parents struggle. Is when they're like, I have no time for self-care. My whole life is revolved around my work, my children, my partner. You tell me when I can incorporate an hour of self-care. Because if you can find that hour, by all means I'll do it. And so I think there are so many parents that are in that boat. And I love that you say you know what? We don't need. An hour. Give me 30 seconds to chew of gum. To go that might be all you need to help you to modulate and to get to a point where you feel comfortable and so you know our schedules are busy, our lives are busy. We have a lot of obligations. But you know, we're not asking for a large chunk of time or a large sum of money.
Jen: No.
Hilary: We're looking for little things to incorporate into our schedule.
Jen: I just went to a conference last month and we went to one of the breakout like little 15 minute talk and there was this lady talking about how self-care and mindfulness and Legos all go into together. And how they're fighting and research that Legos is one of the best ways to get into that mindful moment because you've got to pay attention and focus. But you're being creative at the same time. And. So. Sometimes we forget that play with our children can be self-care as well, because we are letting other things go. We are getting down on that child level of. Let me just play.
Hilary: My son would be so proud if he heard that that Legos are the cure all to everything. Because I think he has.
Jen: This lady had huge amounts like she's left them all put together displayed all of her Lego things and it was pretty cool. She's like it has helped me so much just to slow down.
Hilary: That's awesome. See, it's not Legos for me, but one of the things that I love doing with my kids that I would choose probably over most everything else is, is puzzles. Love puzzles and my oldest loved puzzles. And we would spend hours doing puzzles together just one after the other, after the other, and he is so good at it, still enjoys doing puzzles, but that was it for me. It's like anytime we were trying to think of something to do and I would offer puzzles and he would accept the offer. I was like, yes, the win-win for both of us, right.
Jen: Yep.
Hilary: We can both be happy here, but I also think so. My girls recently picked up crochet. Crocheting. And I know nothing about crocheting, so this was not a skill that I passed on to them. They had a sweet little mother in in our neighborhood that taught them, but they take their little crochet hooks all over the place and oftentimes they're crocheting in the car. You know, they're crocheting. We they took him to a dance competition that we were at. So during down time they were crocheting. But I remember talking to one of the other moms and saying. I need my 8 year old to teach me how to how to do this. Because I think so often we have these little pockets of time where what we tend to do as adults is fill those pockets with mindless scrolling, right? We get on our phones and we scroll social media. And so I think. Something that I could do with my hands. Right during those 5 minutes, while I'm waiting in the pick up line. Or while we're in the waiting room at the doctor's office, something that can help engage my brain. Even I have one sister that struggles sitting and watching television without feeling the need to multitask. And so she says. Oftentimes I'm watching TV, but I have my laptop on my lap as well, too, doing work at the same time. And she's like, it's like I can't shut that brain off. I feel like I need to be productive. And so I and I thought to myself. Something like crocheting, even if I can watch a movie, but I'm still using my hands and you know, like helping. Even though we have this other device, you know, we're still being mindful with what we're doing, right. With the task at hand, and so I thought even something simple as that. Where? We can pull that out and just utilize those pockets of time that oftentimes we have, so.
Jen: I have a little craft bag next to my chair. At home that when we're watching, when we're watching TV, it's got crochet in there, it's got coloring in there. It's got my sketch pad in there to do my doodling. And so it's got lots of different activities that I can do. While we're watching a program or a movie or whatever together. And for me, that is very regulating, yeah. And to me that self-care.
Hilary: Oh yeah, definitely.
Jen: As long as I'm getting more space. My energy into a place that is comfortable, that is self-care.
Hilary: Mm-hmm. And, you know, we have talked about this before on multiple episodes. And so hopefully, I'm not being too redundant here. But I mean, I know that we have discussed this idea that. In order to be a healthy parent, you need to be in a healthy business in yourself. You know, if, if we don't have anything to give, if our bucket is empty, we can't offer anything to our kids. And so you know for those busy parents out there that say. I just don't have the time. I can't. There's no time in my schedule for me. Well, at some point, if you have become that exhaustive, you don't have anymore to give.
Jen: And that's where you need to set a boundary and say I have got to set time aside for myself. I always, parent, because I used to teach parenting classes and that was one thing that I always got was I don't have the time. And like we find time for things that are important to us, yeah. It doesn't matter if we're busy already, but we find there's something that comes up that we're like, oh, that's really important. I need to do that we find the time. And so I feel like it we need to be making sure that we consider ourselves important enough. To find the time for us.
Hilary: And you know, and you make that perfect leeway into what this article, what the main objective of what this article was, was just that idea of boundaries. And so it talks about talks about boundaries in here and. And it talks about how boundaries are the imaginary lines that we draw around ourselves to promote physical and mental well-being. But it also mentions here. We find, but when we find ourselves feeling weary, burnt out, resentful or angry, chances are we have some work to do on those boundaries. And you know, I look at. I look at my life. And I look at the times where I have been the most stressed out, you know, feeling overwhelmed and starting to feel anxious. And it's when I've taken on too much. It's when I have gotten in this mindset of, well, I can't say no to that or I can't do that or so and so's going to be disappointed in me if I don't offer that. And so. You know the result is, is that then we are in this state where we don't have any more to give. And so I think creating those boundaries for ourselves allows us to maintain this ability to help our children without feeling weary and burnt out and resentful and angry. Right? That's what that's the beauty of boundaries. So that we can continue to give in the way that we want.
Jen: And I think making sure that we understand that it's our responsibility to fill our buckets. It's not somebody else's responsibility. Yeah, those are the little I always like that visual activity that I've seen lots of people do of putting the bigger rocks in a jar and then you would put in the little ones that kind of fill in those spaces. And then you put water that fills in the rest and the big ones are the important things. Taking care of my family, making sure I'm doing my work. So you know, I've got my job or. But one of those big rocks should be self-care. Those should be one of the things everything else can fill it. But if you put the big rocks in last, not everything's going to fit. Yeah, I love that little visual.
Hilary: Yeah. And that's honestly that's a really great one if you're trying to teach your kids this concept as well too, because I've used that concept to help teach kids about prioritizing right and everybody, it just it clicks in their brain, it makes sense. And so I think this isn't that's an easy. The visual object lesson that you can use with these little ones that they're going to understand too. But ah yes, I, you know, I can see why I need to get my homework done before I go watch TV. Right? Because then I have time to accomplish the big tasks before some of those extra tasks. So I love that one.
Jen: We should find the video and put it in the show notes.
Hilary: Ohh OK will do. But it talks in this article about knowing our put our priorities and our limits and honoring those and it and it offers 3 tips for exploring our boundaries. And so I'll share those 3 tips with you and you can provide any insight that you have. But the first one says to look to the past and it describes, you know, looking back on our life and asking yourself, you know, what were some of those experiences that I can recall that were draining or difficult or maybe particularly negative. And were those looking back on those instances were those instances boundary violations right? Did that play a role in having that experience be negative? You know, was I meeting my own needs during that time, or was I so focused on meeting the needs of others so. That's one tip. And then it talks about looking at the present, right? And at this moment in life, how are we feeling? What are we doing to care for ourselves? And it mentioned something really, it mentions an exercise that that we can do and it talks about writing down situations that causes yucky feelings, which I thought was a funny way to describe it, and then looking at the list considering what areas might need might be easiest to address, so it says. For example, asking a good friend to do more listening and less talking is likely to go better than asking you know for like a bigger task. Pick the low hanging fruit and work towards making small positive changes. Mm-hmm. While considering maybe bigger changes down the road that might be harder to tackle in the moment. Right. So if you're looking at your list of like, it describes yucky things, right? And you're like, well, this is kind of stressful. This is kind of stressful. This is happening. And then pick that low hanging fruit. What do I have control over? Right. What could I change? What could I eliminate potentially from my plate? Where can I incorporate some boundaries of what's not working? There might not be some things that you have control over that may stay there, but I think if we can like put it down on paper, we might be able to see. Ohh yes, there are some things that I can eliminate. There are some boundaries that I can set up so I don't feel this overwhelmed so.
Jen: Yeah.
Hilary: I thought that was a good one. And then the third one, and you've already you've already mentioned this, Jen, is to be mindful. And it particularly talks about paying attention to our bodies. Because oftentimes, when we are overwhelmed and stressed out, our bodies are trying to tell us that something is wrong. Sending us physical cues, right, stomach aches, racing hearts, clenching fists, all those things that we talk about. But sometimes they can offer us some long term cues as well too that. We need to be aware of. I can remember if ohh sorry, go ahead.
Jen: I was gonna say This is why I love the concept of energy and modulation and regulation of finding out where you are at your best and you feel comfortable in your energy and then figure out when you don't feel comfortable. What things can I do? Yeah, and that. I just love that concept because. We can do things within minutes and we can take a little bit more time if we needed to take more time, but we just love that concept of energy because it helps. I mean, me and my husband, we use it all the time with one another of and notice your energy doesn't look so comfortable. What can we do to help you? Or do you need to go in the room, the bedroom, and take a few minutes for yourself. Yeah, it just makes so much sense in my brain to pay attention to those things. And be mindful of our bodies and what it's telling us because it's telling us to stop a lot of the time.
Hilary: Yeah. Ohh totally and I think we forget that our mind and our body are so connected to one another, right? That they are constantly sending these cues to each other. And I mean I can remember this was last year if I can remember correctly time frame where I didn't realize how stressed out I was, how much I had added to my plate, but what happened is I started to notice I had this unusual rash on my arm and so I went and it wasn't getting any better. And so I went and got it checked out. And you know, they're going through all of the things, you know, have you eaten anything new? Not necessarily. You know, are you taking a new detergent, new perfumes? But not all of the things which none of those things added up, there wasn't anything that I could say that had changed in my life. And then. He said OK, well, tell me about how life is going right now, you know, what's your stress level like? And I stopped. And I was like. Oh, I'm actually really stressed out right now. You know, there was some. There were some things happening at work. Out of the norm that were causing me a lot of stress, there were some things within the family, you know, some of my kids were dealing with some illnesses. And so it wasn't until then that I was like, huh? Yes, actually now that you say that. My life is completely chaotic right now, and my poor body has probably been trying to send me these signals for weeks, right? But I just was not able to identify until it got drastic enough that it started causing these major rashes on my body. You know, cuz I'm sure leading up to that. I had some of these other physical cues that were easy to ignore. But I think so often our body is sending us like these alarms. Like, hey, listen up. Like I'm not in a good state and you need to do something here. You know, we've talked in our podcast before about stress and how stress is a part of our life. And stress isn't necessarily a bad thing, right? Stress can be a motivator. Stress helps us to strive to be better and to reach higher, but ongoing reoccurring stress can be incredibly detrimental to our health, our mental health, as well as our physical health. And so, you know. And Jen mentioned at the Family Place, we talked a lot about energy and we use the terms modulation right. You guys have heard us. Say that before. But we feel very strongly about that concept, so if that's something you would like to learn more about, reach out to us at the Family Place and we can help you understand that because that is one of our core founded of what we do at the family places helping ourselves, but also others understand where you're comfortable, where you feel safe, where you feel secure, and if you feel dysregulated. If that energy is higher or lower than what you want it to be, what we need to do in order to get you to that state where you feel OK.
Jen: : Yeah. Yeah.
Hilary: : My friends, we know self-care is important and we've talked about that, but I just think the biggest take away here is recognizing that in order to have effective self-care, we do need to set up some boundaries in our life. And those can be boundaries for ourself. Hey, I'm going to pause at this many times of the day. I'm going to put that phone down. I'm going to pull out my calendar and schedule time for me. But I think it also has to do with boundaries that we set up with others. You know when requests are made, when people are asking certain things of us, when our children's schedules are starting to get busier and busier, what type of boundaries do we set up in regards to those areas as well too.
Jen: I like what Brene Brown says. She has a ring that she can spend three times, and if she can't figure out a reason why she should do it in that three times spoon, she says no. Hey, if you need to have it that to think about it, then do it until you can get. A little bit better at it, yeah.
Hilary: I like it.
Jen: Alright friends, thanks for coming and listening with us today. We hope you are able to apply some. Some things that you've learned, but also remember to take care of yourself. Set some time aside and do something just for you. Remember to be kind and patient with yourselves, and we will see you next time.
Thank you for listening to the Parents Place podcast. If you would like to reach us, you can at parents@thefamilyplaceutah.org or you can reach Jen on Facebook. Jen Daly - The Family Place. Please check out our show notes for any additional information. Our website is thefamilyplaceutah.org. If you're interested in any of our upcoming virtual classes, we'd love to see you there.
Episode Resources:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/buddhist-psychology-east-meets-west/202405/why-boundaries-are-essential-self-care
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