Challenging seasons and radical change: family life, boundaries, and self-care

[Intro] Hello and welcome to Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host Corinne Powell. I'm so glad you're here.

No matter what type of day you're having, you're always welcome. I like having you around. This space is especially designed for the person who goes about life focused on everyone else while neglecting their own needs.

The person who says yes when inwardly they want to say no. The person who is frustrated at all they do because they don't receive much in return. If that's you, I'm going to put out some great ideas on how you can change those patterns and get unstuck.

Life isn't meant to be tolerated. It should be enjoyed. So let's get to it.

Corinne Powell: Hello there, hope you're doing well. Definitely understand that life is full of challenges and you might not be doing well. No matter where you're at today, if you feel like you need to just have someone hear you out, please feel free to send me a message, shoot me an email, and just say what's going on. We may not know each other, but I am very interested in how your day's going. If I stop and ask someone when I'm on a walk how they're doing, I'm at the grocery store and I pause, I stop walking. I'm truly asking because I'm interested, because I'm willing to listen to what they have to share. 

Honestly, it brings me to tears to think about the fact that there's so many times someone says, how are you doing? And I wonder if they really wanna know and because I assume they don't, I don't share how I'm really doing. I might be honest, I might say, I'm hanging in there if that's where I'm at. But I know what it's like to wish somebody would listen, to wish someone would truly care. And I extend that to you because I can, because I truly do care, because I am interested.

And with that, we're gonna talk about my seasonal reflections. Summer has just ended for us here. The school year's has begun. And as seasons go, they're varied. And it's a good thing when we reflect on nature, how seasons change. Because for the climate, for the environment, we need the seasons to change, we need the natural progression of what happens to benefit us, to keep sustaining us. And in life, it's not different. For many of you, if you're parents, summer might be a challenging time. I loved having time with my kids this summer. I have four children ranging from the ages of 12 to one and a half. And they were all home with me most of the time. And I truly enjoyed being with them. 

I didn't get to the end of the summer saying, just can't wait for school to start. I was okay with school starting, but I truly was enjoying my children being around more. What I don't enjoy is the extra fighting between them and the arguments and the lack of rest that I found for myself. And sometimes the chaos of just constantly being together. If you think about you and your adult siblings, and perhaps you have a great relationship with them, but for many of us, we don't wanna be around our siblings all the time. And I recognize it's the same for my children, that they just wanna break from each other. So sometimes it gets to be a lot. And in years past, we did some camps, day camps here and there, but this summer, most of them weren't interested in doing day camps.

And so we had about three weeks out of the whole summer and our, my kids go to private school, so they get a little bit of extra summer. They get about three months off. So only three weeks of that time was somebody in day camp. And so that, you know, broke things up for them. If one of their siblings wasn't here, changes the dynamic and that's enough to make it easier.

And of course we had fun activities. We had some family time away where we saw extended family. But it gets to be a lot even for the kids being with each other. And I felt the toll of that. And as school started back up and we got into a new routine and there was a different sort of structure to the days, it felt like everyone exhaled and we felt the refreshment in the change. But now I'm left feeling this depletion from all of the months of putting out more than I really had. Certainly I managed it, I did it but I paid for it. I realize that I have been left with a deficit and I need to recharge and refuel.

And so I want to share a little bit about what I've discovered as I've reflected on my summer. And perhaps some of you will identify and I'm going to offer some tools that you can take and implement if you'd like. Firstly, I grew up doing for everyone else and neglecting my own needs. So my fallback is to do that again. It's a condition pattern that I've changed.

But in situations such as this past season, I found myself there again and I felt the resistance because no part of me, my body, my mind, wants to go back to what it used to be. And so there was a natural resistance, a fight in me, to say you can't keep going at this pace, it's too much. My nights are still chopped up because of my daughter who's still nursing, who's co-sleeping, and I completely take responsibility for choosing to live that way. So I'm not complaining about the lack of sleep because I could do it differently if I wanted, but I also know that getting less sleep at night means I have to make up for it during the day.

So in the school year, when she naps, I might lay down and rest for part of the time. And that's actually the hardest choice to make because when she's sleeping, it's prime time to get a lot of things done in a short amount of time. Whether that's tasks at home, Change Radically, work-related tasks, there's a long to-do list and it's actually a loving choice. It's a very deliberate act of self-care, to say I will lay down and close my eyes while she is resting and I will take some time to rest myself. But I'm better off for it. I'm able to show up as my authentic self more easily and to be plain, I just have energy to get things done. I'm not as tired out. I'm not living as exhausted. 

Sleep is the number one way to help regulate our nervous system. If we just got the rest our body needed, it makes everything more manageable. And this summer, I wasn't able to catch up on the sleep I was missing during the night because with the older kids, there's a lot going on every day. And it's very difficult to try to lay down and get an uninterrupted even 20-minute nap.

I also have noticed, not only did I fall back into some patterns of not meeting my needs and not taking the amount of self-care time that I needed, but I also recognized that there was some family staying with us. And living with my family of origin was hard when I had to do it as a child. It's not easier now. It's different because I'm an adult. I've learned to place boundaries. I know how to accept and be my authentic self more easily, but it still takes a toll on me. It's still draining to be myself when I know the other persons don't like me for who I authentically am or they disagree with some of my belief systems, with some of my values. 

So you see, growing up, I simply conformed to the way that they wanted things done. I became the people pleaser because it was easiest, it was the easiest way to make it through and survive. And no, I didn't cognitively think of it like that. I was just a child who didn't want to get reprimanded. So I figured out what I needed to do to make my parents or other people happy. Do what they want, say what they want, and you'll keep the peace. I'm not advocating that that's the way to go about things. I'm simply saying that's the way I managed and figured out how to survive and get through.

Now I've had to unlearn all those patterns. And I'm proud of myself for how I related with the family members this summer. That conversations that in the past would have triggered me. I was able to stay present in my body, unagitated, because what we were talking about in conversations did not feel like a personal attack anymore. I recognize that it's a projection of someone else's belief system. It's not as much about me as it is about them. Sometimes we think someone's attacking us personally when really they're just talking out of their own pain. And so I can reflect and say, gosh, I see the progress. I have changed radically. There is so much healing that has happened. It doesn't mean that I'm not still exhausted from showing up in relationships that are difficult to show up in authentically.

You've heard, if you've been listening to Empowered to Thrive for a while, you've heard me talk a little bit about my spiritual background, the ways that I perceive how church should go, and I grew up in an evangelical Christian community. And so when I go to church, it's to that type of church. And I worship very differently than some of the other people who regularly attend church. And yet, I've learned that I want to show up as my authentic self in order to be most satisfied going into that environment. 

Basically, that environment and me stepping into it is no different than me stepping into relationships with my family or me showing up with my children at home in a way that is authentic and true to me. So that if the doors open, if the windows are open and someone's looking through, they could say, well, that's the Corinne that I know. That's the one she describes herself as. She's not different at home when the blinds are shut and the doors are closed. She's not different when she goes to church versus when she has an honest conversation with someone from her family of origin, she's authentically herself.

And as much as I am willing and choosing, deliberately choosing to be that, it's not that it doesn't take its own toll on me. Sometimes I feel depleted when I work so hard to show up authentically. And it's gotten easier over the years and I know it will continue to get easier. That being true to me will feel more and more effortless as the years go on. And I honor the fact that it's still hard and I'm willing to do it when it's hard. And I applaud that. And I would applaud it for you just the same. I think it's commendable when we live true to our values.

And as I reflect on relating with difficult people, perhaps family, the one tool that I think is most needed is boundaries and recognizing that time limits are important and you don't have to do more than you feel able or you can push yourself just slightly past that point you felt before was your stopping point as you're learning to expand your window of tolerance but just slightly pass. So as I considered the summer, I realized, you know what? Next go around, I should probably limit the amount of time I have family staying with me knowing that I've done it in the past and some time is okay, too much time becomes extra challenging for me.

And you know, I think - society, sometimes society paints this picture that if you're family, you should be best of friends. And I think it's wonderful when family feels like best of friends, but I'm learning as I get older, the longer I'm on the healing journey, that I am accepting of myself if I don't consider my family my best friends. That I don't think it  needs to be that way because you grew up with those people, because you were born into that family, that now they need to be your best friends for life. Maybe they will be, maybe they won't be. Just like relationships change with other people and they're not forever, so it might be with family that you were close at a time and you're not always close. Or perhaps you weren't close and you become more connected as you get older, as you heal more. It just depends.

But as seasons change, so goes relationships. Friendships don't have to be forever. Best friends forever? Maybe your best friend was your best friend in the past, and now you're on two different paths. You don't have to stay forever best friends. Consider your relationships as we're reflecting on how seasons change, this ties right in to how sometimes relationships change. Allow your relations to align with who you are, with your values. Allow your relationships to be mutually beneficial, where it's a give and a take. It's not just you showing up for the other person, or you initiating all the get togethers, all the points of contact, but they also.

How is the time together with them? Do you enjoy it? Do you feel refreshed? Is it a back-and-forth you each get to share? Are you comfortable showing up authentically as yourself? Or do you have to change when you're with them? Are you different when you're with them? Just reflect, just consider. You don't have to do anything with it. But it's never harmful and it's usually very helpful to sit back and reflect and consider. You don't have to get in your head and start to make sense and make create stories out of all of this. It's just taking notice.

Getting curious and witnessing yourself and witnessing yourself when you're relating to other people and witnessing the other people and just learning from what you see, what you experience, what you notice. So boundaries are very important, allowing relationships to evolve and change as they naturally will, not trying to hold on to something that was or something that you hope to be that isn't coming to be, but actually coming to terms and accepting how people are, who people are, what the relationship's like. And that can be really difficult because sometimes it means we have to let go of something that we've been desperately holding onto in hopes that our dream reality would become reality and sometimes it's just not the case.

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Corinne Powell: Another component to the seasons changing is that sometimes we need to have goals for ourselves as we're going into a new season so that we can stay on track. We can evaluate what do we see for this season? What do we sense? What are things we want to accomplish or that we believe are intentional and purposeful for the next season? And having these goals in place so that we have somewhere to look. We have a direction to head towards, and we can align our yeses and our nos with those goals.

If I know spending time together with my children over the summer is a goal of mine, then it might mean naturally I have to work fewer hours. I have to clear my schedule of certain activities. I have to make plans for other outings that we normally wouldn't plan for. Whatever the goal is, then we can determine what we're gonna bring into our life and what we're gonna remove out of our life. And the beauty of seasons is that it doesn't have to be forever. You don't have to bring something in forever or remove it forever. It's simply for a time. And then you can enjoy it. You can enjoy the change while it's there. And then as the seasons shift, there's a newness to the next one. And there's a reevaluation and a time to shift, to set new goals, to allow new things or familiar things to happen. So what is it for you?

As you look forward to this next season and you reflect on the past, what is it that you glean from the past that's going to benefit you in this new season? And what are some of your goals for this next season? How can you align your yeses and your nos so that you're able to reach those goals or you're able to live at least in alignment with that goal?

I hope this has been helpful. In just preparing to talk about this, it was helpful to me to be able to reflect and celebrate myself for some of the things I'm proud of and to learn from some of the hard lessons. I want to do next summer a little bit differently. There's many ways I'm so grateful for how this summer was and there's other ways that I've learned and I say next summer will be different.

Next summer I will work fewer hours. I will create space and time for more moments of self-care. I will establish slightly different boundaries when it comes to what do I allow into my schedule and into my summer months. But I also know time spent with my children will be another high priority next summer. Get-togethers with extended family will be something I want to enjoy again.

We canceled our house cleaners this summer and just cleaned more ourselves. It doesn't mean even having house cleaners that I don't clean all the time because you know, the house gets messy every day. But some of the deeper cleaning I usually don't have to do. And so the kids and I implemented that into our routine this summer. As much as it was a little bit challenging, I reflect and I say, we could do that again next summer.

During the school year, they only have so many hours in between school and getting to bed. And I like them to be able to play outdoors and read books and perhaps use some screens, do things that are lighthearted and fun. And so having the house cleaners helps to alleviate the stress on me, helps me to ask less of my kids. They still have to clean. They still have chores regularly. But without the house cleaners, it would be even more.

But during summer, again, it's a different season. So for those three months, we can take on a little bit more of that load.

Anyhow, I hope that you're sitting there getting excited. I'm feeling excited about this next season and the goals and the vision and being able to put some order into what's ahead. So that by the end of it, I can feel the satisfaction that yes, yes, I aligned my choices, with the goals that I had for this season. So with that, happy autumn, and I will look forward to connecting again with you next week. Remember, you can take me up on that offer if you just need someone to share what's going on with. I won't offer you my feedback unless you ask for it. Send me an email, Corinne, C -O -R -I -N -N -E, at changeradically.com, or contact me directly through one of my socials and send me a private message.

I'll talk to you next week.

[Outro] We've come to the end of another episode. I'm so glad you stuck around. As you consider what you've heard, what's the one thing that especially resonated with you? What's one way you can start to implement change into your life? Too much too soon isn't sustainable.

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