How do my stress and boundaries relate?
Dear EQuipped Leaders,
How are you this Sunday morning?
I’m writing to you from a different spot today. A different city, a different coffee shop, a different flavored latte. But same time, same sticker-covered laptop, same mission: show up and write about one of my all time favorite things: applying EQ.
This time that I carve out and protect each week with you has actually been a really good example of my own boundaries reducing my stress. Let’s talk about it!
Stress and boundaries. How do they relate?
One of my favorite things about working with Applied EQ is getting to continually interact with content that I’m seeking to apply in my own life. This past week I got to observe our CEO Adam present a stress workshop that I will later be presenting this summer. It was so fun to be an attendee again and think about my own stress. This slide from his presentation really got me thinking:
Something about the wording moved me, especially the idea of setting boundaries “to protect my heart.”
How do I protect my heart? Do I think my heart is worth protecting? Am I willing to stand up for it?
How do I protect my time? Do I see how I spend my time as valuable? Am I intentional about how I spend it?
How do I protect my body? Do I give myself what I need? Am I trying to feed and care for others without first feeding and caring for myself?
A big theme of the workshop was: if you can’t learn how to channel your stress, you can’t really choose who you want to be. It is way too easy to stay in survival mode and never stop and look around and ask, “What am I even doing here and why? And is this even who I want to be?”
There is a lot I can’t control, but there is also a lot I can.
How I protect my time, my heart, my body. All of that is within my control. All of that adds up to how my life feels to me.
But figuring out and holding my own boundaries is hard. It requires a lot of self respect, self-awareness, and communication skills. For example, before I figured out my morning coffee shop writing ritual, I was constantly stressed about this blog. I would work on it all week while simultaneously caring for my children. It was like an open tab in my brain: Gotta figure out the blog post for this week. Gotta use any spare moment to get it done.
Then, finally, I built a fence around my writing time. I negotiated a time that worked for both my husband and me, and I put it on our shared calendar. For the first time I told my brain: “Here is where the blog goes in our week. You don’t have to stress about it anymore. I will protect this time, and you will get what you need in order to write.” Miraculously, it took so much less time to write the blog when I gave myself what I needed to write it: dedicated time.
It sounds so obvious now, but this really wasn’t obvious to me before. I’ve previously functioned by trying to do everything…all the time…at the same time and just being constantly stressed and annoyed. I didn’t have any temporal boundaries. I didn’t even know that was a thing!
Now, I enjoy writing the blog so much each week. I get to get a delicious latte, something I only get myself when I come to write, and I get to work deeply on something I care about. The blog went from being a constant stressor to a weekly ritual I can savor.
But the only thing harder than setting a boundary is holding a boundary. I’m so glad I protected my writing boundary this morning. I’m out of town visiting family right now. Everyone is back at the house hanging out, and I drove 10 minutes away to an adorable coffee shop to write for a few hours. I need this time. I also want this time. But this morning, I was wavering, “Maybe I’ll just go upstairs and write.” Of course, that wouldn’t work. I have two children. I need a little space for myself to switch out of mom mode and switch into writer mode. I need a boundary. I could have stayed and felt resentful every time one of my kids interrupted me. But instead I decided to hold my boundary and take up more space. I decided to come to a new coffee shop and treat myself.
Now I get to go back to my family rejuvenated, stimulated by doing work that I love (and caffeine!). I held my boundary, and I’m confident it was better for me, and I’m confident I will show up better as a mom and a wife and a niece when I go back to my family.
I didn’t always know that my time, my heart, my body were worth protecting. I didn’t think I was valuable enough to set boundaries and expect myself and others to respect them.
I don’t feel that way anymore. :)
Where does this land for you?
What boundaries have you set to protect your time, your heart, your body?
Do you know you are worth protecting?
What is stressing you out today? Could setting a boundary help?
Could your team use more tools for channeling stress? We would love to connect with you: info@appliedEQgroup.com.
Better EQuipped Together, Elizabeth
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