Transcript
WEBVTT
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Welcome back to the women's mental health podcast.
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I'm randy.
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I'm And I'm Jess.
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And we are two licensed psychotherapists, and this is a safe space where we talk about mental health, well being, and strategies for coping with life's challenges.
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And how all of this is normal, and you are not alone.
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today we're delving into a topic that's crucial for every woman for today we're delving into a topic that's crucial for every woman out there, the importance of protecting your peace.
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Oh, that is so big right there.
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That has come up so much this last couple of weeks of just protecting your peace.
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So this episode we're going to emphasize the importance of protecting your peace for your mental health.
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We're going to offer some insights.
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Some strategies for implementation
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and then we're going to talk about recognizing when to step back, how to set boundaries and prioritizing your self care so that you can foster your mental health and your emotional well being while guarding your peace.
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So find us and more resources on womensmentalhealthpodcast.
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com.
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Have you ever had these
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thoughts?
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Why is it important to protect your
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peace?
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How does protecting my peace benefit my mental health?
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What are some
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signs that indicate I really need to protect my peace?
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How can you establish healthy boundaries to protect your peace?
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What role
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does self care play in protecting my
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peace?
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How can you navigate toxic relationships and guard your peace?
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Oh, that's a good one right there.
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How can you protect your peace in a busy, fast paced
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world?
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Can social media impact your peace of mind?
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And if so, how can you protect yourself from that?
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We're
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going to say, yeah, it totally can.
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How can you protect your peace in challenging situations or conflicts with others or
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work?
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How do you stay committed to protecting your peace when faced with obstacles?
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So first, what does protecting your peace actually mean?
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Because that's not something we normally say, but it's been popping up.
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It's
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like a little bit of a buzzword right now.
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So really, we're going to dive into the meaning of that.
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So protecting your peace involves intentionally and mindfully.
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Safeguarding your mental and emotional well being while stress and life is raging all around you.
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It is so important to safeguard this mental well being and protecting your peace.
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Especially
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as a woman.
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Yeah, it
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is.
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It's so important.
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It's about creating boundaries that shield you from your negati from your negativity.
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Well,
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maybe.
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It can be, yeah.
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From negativity and stress and these constant demands of life, especially us as moms and women out there.
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Yeah.
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If
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we don't have these protective strategies around us, like boundaries.
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We can feel very overwhelmed, stressed, or face burnout.
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And yeah, and that can lead to more mental health issues like weight gain or anxiety, depression also mood swings so when we're a woman, we're constantly juggling expectations, responsibilities, and our own personal goals that we and if we can actually put our
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personal
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goals out there, my gosh, and so that really depletes our emotional reserves and our mental reserve.
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Sometimes we feel like we have nothing left.
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And what I love about the idea of guarding your peace, it involves recognizing when you need to step back, right?
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It creates those healthy boundaries and that saying no is necessary.
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Remember, no is a full sentence.
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Yeah, no.
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It is a full sentence and you don't have to explain it because that's part of the boundary piece.
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we're not taught as women that we can actually say no.
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We're supposed to just keep taking it on, yes, yes, yes, just do it all and just keep going until we have a mental breakdown.
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No, we're stopping that right now.
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And Jess just did this in her personal and professional life too.
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She was headed towards burnout.
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And it was like, okay, what are you going to do and she made some changes and she is feeling
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two weeks of it.
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I'm already feeling so much
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better.
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And I can even see it.
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It's like a weight has been lifted off of you.
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And so she prioritized herself and she set expectations for herself and her family that this change was going to happen.
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And she Made it
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happen.
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Yeah.
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And I'm delegating.
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I'm not taking on everything like kin keeping.
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We divide up the tasks and I'm like, somebody needs to take care of their dishes.
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If you're going to make it, you need to do it.
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Dishes are a big deal in our house.
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I know I talk about it a lot, but they're always, they're always there.
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They're always constant.
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It's always evolving.
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It's like
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stupid nagging.
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thing.
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Yeah.
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I hate chores.
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Anyways.
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But yeah, I just, I decided what I wanted to do and prior prioritized.
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I can never say it.
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Yeah.
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Myself.
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And what I needed for me and my family, because I found I was getting grumpy.
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Yeah.
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And so that's what we're talking about is like, when you don't guard yourself, you don't set boundaries, you don't protect your peace.
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It exacerbates things like anxiety, depression, not only that, but Physical things like your body starts feeling tense or your body can become inflamed or Like you said you just become more moody and then that affects all your relationships and your work and your friendships And so then everything is compromised you know and so You really need to develop a toolbox of strategies.
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Yes.
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And that includes regular self care activities, and if you think self care is like getting a massage, go back and listen to our self care episodes.
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Just go to our website and put in self care and it'll pull them up.
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Mindfulness practices, setting aside time for things that bring you joy, like whether that's hobbies or crafting or.
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activities, running, whatever it is that you need.
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One of the things I love about we live in a pretty Pacific Northwest where it's cold right now.
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And so when the sun comes out, we start to see all of our neighbors and everybody starts gardening and everybody starts having a garden.
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And it just, it's all of a sudden you get to set aside time.
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I could get lost for like two hours talking to neighbors when, when spring comes along.
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And that to me is important to check in and say hi.
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And to see how everybody's doing, and that is protecting my peace.
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Mm hmm.
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If I don't, if I don't have it to talk to people, girl, I gotta leave my garage door down.
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Because if I have my garage door
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open That's also protecting your peace.
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Yes.
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That's a boundary, because, or I don't have time for this right now, but I do need to make time for it because it does bring me joy.
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Yes.
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I feel a lot of times we feel like these things are maybe frivolous, like, why should I take the time to walk down the street and talk to my neighbor?
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But if that fills your cup Fills my cup.
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That is a tool and use it.
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It's not frivolous.
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It's important and also like the importance of learning to say no without guilt.
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I think a lot of times we can get pressure from family or friends, even work obligations, and we don't know how to say no and learning to say no without the guilt.
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And if, yeah, if you're not comfortable just saying, no, I don't want to do that, you can say, unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to do that.
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And if somebody says, well, why not?
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Your response is, I'm just not.
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The thing about boundaries is that you don't have to explain yourself.
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You could just say, Oh, anybody an explanation for anything that you do?
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Absolutely
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not.
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And so that's what a lot of times I'll say, unfortunately, I'm not able to do that.
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Why not?
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I'm just not.
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Or I'll say, that's not going to work for me.
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Why not?
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It just is
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not.
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And learning to do this, it also helps that you have a supportive network that's going to help you get through this.
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That'll be like, girl, you can say no it's okay.
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Or you don't have time for that.
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Friends that will also call you out on your shit, but also support you when you're doing something good but also when you're doing something detrimental to yourself, like maybe you need to go.
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Take a 15 minute breather and it's okay.
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People that empower you in learning to protect your peace are very important to in this journey.
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And you want people who
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protect their
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peace too.
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Yeah, you can learn from them as an example too.
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So you want to be, you want to surround yourself with people that are where you want to be.
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So you can get on the level they are and they can help you and mentor you.
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Because it
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can be chaos out there, but as long as you are safeguarding your piece and you are setting aside time for you, you don't have to be part of that chaos out there.
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You don't, you don't have to.
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So Randy, let me ask you, why is it important to protect
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your piece?
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Because it helps you maintain your overall emotional and physical well being, it allows you to reduce stress, it increases your resiliency when you feel contentment and at peace with yourself, and it really helps cultivate that positive mindfulness and mindset.
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When you prioritize yourself, you're prioritizing your peace, and that can improve your overall mental health, your relationship, your communication, your work life, your everyday life.
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Yeah,
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the relationship piece there, I have been more present.
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Like you had said, in the last two weeks, I changed some things up.
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Yeah, when you're not constantly feeling a drain on you, you can give more to where it's important.
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Exactly.
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And I felt I wasn't being able to give it here at home, right?
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And I wanted to be able to give it at home instead of being like, yep, all right, fine.
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And
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so Putting your blinders on.
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That's why I
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was just going, yeah.
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And so it is protecting my peace so I can give me where I want to
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give me.
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So that leads into how does protecting your peace then benefit your mental health?
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Well,
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she just said it.
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Yeah I, it's, when you prioritize your self care and set your boundaries it helps you manage stress and reduce anxiety and, and maintain a healthy emotional
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balance.
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Yeah, and reduces burnout.
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Yeah, it really does.
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And it just, you're creating this safe space for yourself.
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And that is, I think the theme of the year is creating a safe space for yourself where you can enhance your mental health and experience increased happiness and fulfillment.
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That's really what we want.
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I really do think that's the theme this
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year.
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I think that's a good theme.
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Let's make that, we're making that a thing.
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That's a
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thing.
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Randy, what are some signs that indicate you need to protect your peace?
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So this is really where it's important to listen to yourself and pay attention to your mood and your physical symptoms.
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You could have feelings of being overwhelmed.
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You could be really irritable, like you're snapping at people, constantly feeling drained, which is what we were talking about.
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Like Jess, she felt like that.
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You may also notice that you're having a hard time focusing or you're not sleeping well, or maybe you're sleeping too much, or you just like overall are not finding enjoyment.
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and things that you used to find enjoyment in, like you don't really want to go out with your friends.
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You don't want to do activities that you normally find happiness with.
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So really tune into yourself and trust your gut and your intuition.
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See if there's any patterns going on and listen to what your mind and your body are telling you.
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As a woman.
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We are very well known for pushing that aside, powering through powering through and then ending up in the hospital or sick or like, I just have walking pneumonia right now because I wasn't listening to my body.
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And I was sick the week before her, yeah, two weeks
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before her because you could tell that we were burning we were burning ourselves out.
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So just how can you establish healthy boundaries to protect your peace?
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Oh, I
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love boundaries.
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We look go check out our episode on
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boundaries boundaries and boundaries start by understanding what your values and needs are That is the very first thing you have to figure out what you stand for what your needs are And then communicate those needs assertively and kindly because what you're doing is like you're saying what you will and won't tolerate.
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You're telling people how to treat you and how you want to be treated with
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boundaries.
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I literally have to think of like putting a fence up.
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And that or a shield up and I'm protecting myself and these words that I'm saying are and that needs to be respected like you would not expect like somebody to just come take an axe to your fence and start breaking it down without talking to you.
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Would you like?
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No, that's what people
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do.
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And that's like what you tell them.
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No,
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you would be like psychopath murder.
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But we allow people to do that to our mental and emotional boundaries all the time.
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Part of it is that you have to be brave, right?
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You've got to be ballsy and you've got to get out there to
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say no.
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You need to be authentic with yourself.
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You do.
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Authentic with yourself.
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Learn to prioritize what you need and get rid of guilt.
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Guilt is such a wasted emotion.
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I know.
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So
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we're Stupid emotion.
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It is.
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Like, why?
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Yeah, you can have remorse if you've done something really horrible and you know you're in the wrong and you need to communicate that, but I feel like so much of the guilt we carry is just from society and it's just like this, it's somebody else
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putting it on us.
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I shoulda,
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coulda, just let that you hang yourself with and it's like, why?
