Learning When to Say No to Yourself
Part of setting healthy boundaries involves those you set with yourself. When we interviewed coach Leslie Hoerner in our last podcast titled Finding Balance Through Boundaries, one of the topics that came up was saying no to ourselves. It had a big personal impact on us both because we had typically thought setting boundaries was all about pointing outward. While setting boundaries definitely includes (and maybe even emphasizes) our relationships and how may need to set limits with others, it’s also about those “no’s” we have to say to ourselves. Of course doing that is not usually easy; but Leslie gave us some sound strategies to help. This episode is what happened when we followed Leslie’s tips. Hopefully, it helps you too!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Lanée Blaise [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Imagine yourself. Thank you for joining us. We're your hosts, Lanee, and Sandy. And we have just really gotten into the habit of taking the previous episode that we just recorded. And then we kinda see how it applies to our daily lives. So Sandy and I are here today to discuss the most recent episode, which was all about finding balance through boundaries. And Sandy, I have to tell you why do we record that episode? Because All that has happened since then is I have been challenged in my own life to really take a good look at things. And I realized maybe I don't balance things as well as I thought I'd do. I think that I am having a hard time juggling and setting boundaries on myself.
Sandy Kovach [00:00:52]:
Oh, me too. Yeah. Me too. Okay. Yeah. Well, you know, I thought you were the boundaries queen, because you've been talking about being better about saying no, and that was actually a, like, a New Year's resolution for you, not too long ago. So are you saying that you have a further way to go with that after talking to Leslie or just the boundaries with yourself?
Lanée Blaise [00:01:12]:
I'm still pretty good about saying no to others. I think that I never realized until that episode that I have been putting a lot of extra things on myself that other people have nothing to do with. And that's where I need to kinda slow my role and make sure that I can have a comfortable balance healthy life and not run around like a crazy person and juggling. And as I said, all of this came to light because of the episode, So maybe it's a good thing. That's always we always try to imagine ourselves doing better, being better, the best version of ourselves, and maybe that's exactly what happened. But I don't know. What's been your experience?
Sandy Kovach [00:01:51]:
So what I loved about Leslie's episode is the her whole thing about deconditioning your desire when you are able to feel the negative emotions of something that you wanna do, but that you know you shouldn't. It's that putting the boundary on yourself And she said she did it with, literal jars. And every time she did it, she would move the bead from one jar to the next. Every time she was successful, Well, I don't have a jar or anything, but I thought I'd try her little thing out. So you know me and sugar. Right?
Lanée Blaise [00:02:22]:
Oh, yes. Yes. If I'm the if I'm the no queen, you're the Queen?
Sandy Kovach [00:02:26]:
I got the Sugar Queen. Queen Sugar. Yeah. Actually, that sounds good. So The last time that we talked about specific sugar things, I talked a lot about Oreos. In fact, that seems to come up a lot in various episodes. And my son recently was bringing Oreo's home during the pandemic. Never used to really have him in the house while all of a sudden he got into an Oreo thing. So the last time he did it, I said, go hide him. I don't even want him around or anything like that. Okay. That's one way to deal with Now my husband, he loves his sweets too. And he likes these little things from the bakery, which are these little apple filled scrutles. They're these little tiny. You can just pop them in your mouth and they're just awesome. So he bought those, but I didn't say hide them. I said, here's my chance to decondition my desire. And have I deconditioned it completely? I don't know. But I let myself crave it and just kinda like Leslie said, I let myself feel the negative emotions and I let it pass. Now it's only one time, but that's a start. Right?
Lanée Blaise [00:03:31]:
That's right. That's the whole purpose that we have these little many episodes because we really wanna make sure that we're living out what we're talking about. We have this burnt guest come on. And then we may as well try it out because we don't wanna not practice what we preach. Yeah. So even if it's been a week, right? It's worked for a week.
Sandy Kovach [00:03:51]:
Hey. I did it one time, and it gave me strength, and we can check-in periodically. And you can ask me how am I doing? -- progress. So how are you?
Lanée Blaise [00:04:00]:
So mine is just a matter of I'm taking a different look at my calendar. I'm taking a different look at my focus. My takeaway from the whole experience, as I said, with boundaries with myself, what do I want to take on? What do I have time to take on? And even though some people say you shouldn't put off tomorrow, what you could do today, in my case, there are some things that I need put off some things today and let them wait until tomorrow so that I can have peace of mind so that I can make sure that my priorities are straight and so that I can still have something to look forward to and hope for for the future, I don't have to do it all now. And that's where my boundary has been put in place to protect my balance.
Sandy Kovach [00:04:48]:
The anti procrastination.
Lanée Blaise [00:04:51]:
Yes. Thank you. Exactly. And I'm I'm all with it, and that's the whole Takeaway. In my case, I remember we talked about it during the last episode, but some people, they say never quit. Some people should never quit. But some people should quit. Some people should make sure that they rest more. Some people are kinda they rest too much.
Sandy Kovach [00:05:10]:
And they -- Too much Netflix and chill?
Lanée Blaise [00:05:12]:
Exactly. Too much Netflix and chill, and they need to balance the other way. So we're all different. We all have different things going on. So in my case, I'm just learning that there are important things I need to go ahead and do today. And some of the things that I'm dreaming about, I can do little things towards it, but I don't need to try to take it all at once. And try to just be superwoman.
Sandy Kovach [00:05:33]:
You don't have to be every woman all at once?
Lanée Blaise [00:05:35]:
Thank you. I don't.
Sandy Kovach [00:05:36]:
But Chaka Khan did get nominated for the rock and roll hall of fame.
Lanée Blaise [00:05:39]:
So and she is every woman.
Sandy Kovach [00:05:41]:
And she is, but then she's stuck an icon, but you're -- Yeah. You know, we don't all have to be stuck
Lanée Blaise [00:05:46]:
Yeah. It's not all of me. And I don't have to put that pressure on self anymore because I now have balance over, you know, I have boundaries and balance in my life. And that's the whole point.
Sandy Kovach [00:05:57]:
All part about being happy. Yeah. You don't have to be everything to everybody all the time. You don't have to answer everyone's back and call all the time, and you don't have to Answer to your own cravings all the time, saying no to yourself, saying no to others. The whole episode that Leslie Hoerner gave us from "Better than Balanced" ... some great messages.
Lanée Blaise [00:06:19]:
Absolutely. Across the board. So, hey, I feel like we're being honest and open. We shared what we learned. Only been a week. We're still a work in progress, but that is what this podcast is all about, making sure that we can try to take ourselves to the next level to what's for our best, for our mental health, our physical health, our spiritual health, all the good things. So with that, imagine yourself taking a look at your own life and making sure that you have the proper boundaries in place for good balance.
Sandy Kovach [00:06:49]:
And if you haven't checked out our last episode, finding balance through boundaries with Coach Leslie Hoerner. It is the episode right before this, and it is actually packed with tons of information, not only on setting boundaries for yourself, which Lanee and I talked a lot about, but also setting boundaries with other people. It's all important to life balance and you'll get more info at imagine yourself podcast.com or wherever you usually listen to podcasts.
