EP 45 Follow These 7 Steps to Find More Balance in Your Wholly Made Life for Busy Working Moms: Decrease the Burn-Out, Stress, Overwhelm in your Marriage, Parenting, Job

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EP 45 Follow These 7 Steps to Find More Balance in Your Wholly Made Life for Busy Working Moms: Decrease the Burn-Out, Stress, Overwhelm in your Marriage, Parenting, Job

What's up ladies, welcome back to this episode of Wholly Made Life. So today I want to talk to you about signs and symptoms of feeling unbalanced or being unbalanced. And we're going to get into this whole word of balance because I think it's really important. You know, we hear all of these things and I talk a lot about this as well, is that we want to restore that balance in all areas of our lives. But what does that really mean?

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So ladies, before we get into today's episode, a quick word about a special coaching package that I have for you. If you have been feeling unbalanced in some areas of your life, and you've been feeling like you're just stuck and you can't seem to get out of this funk, that's exactly what my coaching package will help you with. We will go through the big idea framework together, and we will come up with an action plan that will allow you to do some small things that equal big results. So jump over into my email actually, instead of my email, jump over to my website. It's at Angie, Tony rogers.com and you can access my coaching menu there. All right. So let's get into today's episode. Okay. We're going to talk about this almost dreaded thing called because I think sometimes it just seems so unattainable. So let's first talk about some signs and symptoms that you might be in a place where you feel unbalanced in some areas of your life.

So it can look like burnout or feel like burnout. It can feel like you are constantly busy and you are not really having time to breathe or to do things that you feel like you need to do. It could be that you get to the end of the day. And you're like, what in the world did I even do today? What did I even accomplish? It can be feeling like you're constantly tired and you just can't get a break or you can't get rested. You can't get to a place where you're feeling any peace at all. It could result in physical manifestations like headaches or upset stomach. A lot of times when we're stressed out or when things are going in a way that we're not really able to take care of ourselves because we are just in such an unbalanced place. In some area of our life, we start to have a lot of gastro issues which would be belly or you know, either nausea or vomiting or sometimes diarrhea or constipation.

A lot of times our physical manifestations of stress show up as headaches or stomach issues. So bowel problems fatigue, energy loss, those are all things that could be happening. Just a sense of overwhelm, a sense of just feeling stress could be that you're having trouble remembering what it was that you needed to do on your to-do list. Maybe your to-do list is like a mountain that you can not see the top of, or that you can never even get to the bottom of. And so you're just standing in the middle of this mountain, hanging on for dear life, wishing or hoping that you could either start over and get to the bottom or, and go home or get to the top and finally breathe in the air and look at the view. But it's just that you're stuck.

Okay. So those are some of the symptoms. So let's talk about my seven steps that we are going to go through to find a sense of balance. Okay. So the first one, well here's what, whatever we're going to do, we're going to spell out the word balance and I have a word and an action for each of those letters. So B well, let's start with balance. So the number one, one thing that we're going to do is you have to define it. There are so many people that say, Oh, I'm just not balanced, or I don't feel right. Or things are not going well, or I'm not meeting all my expectations. I'm never accomplishing anything. But when you talk to them, they're like not, they're not even in a place where they can even define, well, what would it look like to be balanced? What does it feel like?

So think about each of our areas of our life pie, which we're talking about, physical, financial, professional, relational, et cetera, and think about, okay, if you felt like you were spending enough energy and time there and feeling accomplished in those areas, what would it feel like? What does it look like? You've got to know what the goal is in order to know that you're meeting the expectations or meeting that balance. So it's so super important to define what balance looks like to you. I hate to break it to you, sisters, but balance is not like a perfect circle where everything is. Even in fact, if you take the Holy made life short assessment, which can be accessed on my website, Andy, to nanny rogers.com, you will see that there are going to be areas in our life pie, where we are scoring lower than other areas.

And that's okay for the season that we, or you may be in. In fact, let me read you a scripture. It is Ecclesiastes three, one eight for everything. There's a season and a time for every matter, under heaven at time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant in a time to pluck up. What's planted a time to kill and a time to heal a time to break down a time, to build up a time, to weep a time, to laugh, a time to mourn a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together at a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. So this scripture reminds me that there are seasons for everything. So you have to understand that even if your scores are uneven or unbalanced, quote unquote, I'm doing air quotes, then you still might be in a season where that might be okay.

You just have to give yourself permission to be okay with that. And to still give yourself credit for meeting the expectations. Here's a great example. Let's say you've got a big project at work that you're working on. Well, maybe you have to work those 10 or 12 or 14 hours a day during the season where this project is, maybe that portion of your life pie needs more time for you right now. So, so the key is to be intentional about the other areas of your life, you know, with your relationships, making sure you communicate, Hey family, this is a project that I'm going to be working on during this season. And this is what it's going to require of me. And here's what I need from you to support me in this. Here's what I need for you to remind me when I'm falling short of certain things.

Maybe I'm not getting enough sleep well, you've got to balance some of that. You can't go, you know, every single night for three weeks with zero hours of sleep. So you've got to have somebody there that's going to help hold you accountable to that as well as yourself, but also having that intentional conversation about, Hey, it's gonna be more energy and time and focus in my professional piece of the pie right now during this season. And then once that season's over, we will refocus and reallocate some time to maybe the relationship piece of a pie. Okay? So that's an example of how we are in seasons. We are always looking to be in balance based on the season and the needs that we have for that particular time. The other thing about balance and making sure that you add this to the definition is that it is on going, it's ongoing.

You have to make peace with the fact that you are going to have pieces of your life pie that require more time than others at different times in your life. And you have to know that being balanced and creating that balance is based on a definition that you can actually maintain and meet expectations from. And you're always working on it. You're always assessing it. You're always trying to create that balance. You're being intentional about that. So it's ongoing. You have to know where you feel and find joy. The fruits of the spirit include joy. So you have to make sure that you are finding joy somewhere, because the more places that even if they're small, that you can identify that you find joy from that will help keep the levels of burnout and stress and overwhelm down because you're still able to find that joy.

All right. So we talked about it flexing. That means that it's, it's gonna be, it's going to wax and wane, you know, with your seasons. Okay. So that's B that's balanced. The second one is a, and we're going to assess and acknowledge. So what this means is that you've in order for you to kinda know what's going on, you've got to pinpoint the feelings and emotions and, and mindset that you have around what's going on right now in your life with your life pine, with all of these different pieces of your pie. You've got to assess what that looks like. You've got to make sure that the definitions that you, you created up and be in the balance, the definition still makes sense for today because today's definition of what balance looks like might be different than yesterday or three months ago or three years ago, or before you had kids, or before you had your fourth kid, or before you took this new job before you quit your job before your kid went to college, whatever.

Okay. So you've got to have that assessment, and then you've got to acknowledge those places that you are identifying that need a little bit of work and then be intentional about creating that plan to do a little bit more in that area. Okay. The third is L which is left. There are so many, especially when you're in a place of unbalanced, there's so many, or when you perceive you're unbalanced, I guess there are so many times I talk to ladies and they say, I don't remember the last time that I actually laughed. And this goes into kind of restoring that joy again as well, but laugh, loosen up. Don't hold yourself to such a standard that a perfectionist couldn't even meet the standard. It's okay. A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but just adjust. Wait is in his delight. That's Proverbs 11 one.

So loosen up a little bit and understand that it's okay to laugh. It's okay to have fun. It's okay to purposefully schedule something in your day that, you know, you're going to find that fun and that joy and that laughter in you know, there's a lot of studies that say, laughter in of itself, adds years to your life because it reduces stress. It releases endorphins. There's a physiological response to smiling and laughing. I remember one of it was Bryson my youngest, where when he would get hurt, I would say, laugh it out, laugh it out because it actually physiologically releases endorphins and your body kind of switches to dealing with those pain feelings that are happening to the endorphins that are a more powerful hormone that gets released. So definitely adding laughter to your day is something that can help overall.

Okay. The fourth step is going to be a, and that is going to be a line. Now I found this very interesting and I don't know why I got on this tangent, but I started thinking about tires being balanced and alignment for your car. And I thought, okay, which one comes before or after the other? And I just started looking it up and I just found it pretty interesting. So first of all, let's define a line. So online means to get a person place or thing to put into a straight line, or it means to commit yourself to being either for, or against something. It means to bring into alignment, you know you remember your third grade teacher telling you, you can't use the word in the definition. Well, when you read definitions online or wherever you're reading from Wikipedia or wherever, it always has the word in the definition somewhere let's see.

It means to put into the exact correct place often in relation to something else or to arrange an Alliance or to be parallel. Okay. So I think about that in two ways, one alignment with the word of truth in the Bible. Number two, again, I just started thinking about how a car needs their tires balanced and needs the alignment done routinely in order to keep it safe. It's self safe, it keep it from being destroyed on the road. So let's talk a little bit about this because I found some parallel, no Palm words information. So you know, drive, meaning where's the way at your car and it's not just, you know, on paint chips and scratches and that kind of thing. It can where the entire inner system of your car to where your entire car stops running or is so damaged that you can't drive it.

Well, I think of that as life, life wears away at us, right? If we're the car life, where's the way it is sometimes, especially if we're not being intentional about creating this quote unquote balance that is only yours, okay? It's not mine, it's yours and yours is not mine your balance. If we don't get intentional about this, we start to wear away and we start to friction starts to tear at us and we start to get worn and we start to get shaky and we start to vibrate and on different levels. And, and we're just not we're not balanced. We're not able to meet our tires on the road in a way that helps us be suspended correctly. The tires themselves help to blunt the worst part of the impact when you go over potholes bumps and other things in the road. But these impacts jar the suspension components. If your wheels are out of alignment, which then starts to damage all the underpinnings of the car. Now I am by no means on mechanic, but I just found this somewhat parallel to what it taught

It, what, what

I'm talking about today. It just reminded me of this. So I thought it might be helpful just to kind of share through that.

Okay.

So it's recommended to rotate your tires regularly so that they keep even where I thought that was very intuitive. We have to continually SS, as I talked about what our definition of balances and whether or not we are in with the truth, with the definition and with our activities, with our intention ality, because otherwise we start to wear unevenly, our relationships get worse, or we start performing poorly on our job. If we are not regularly rotating our tires or balancing our tires, okay. Balancing our life, coming up with that definition, assessing that on an ongoing basis, then we start to experience uneven wear and tear in our lives. Okay. I thought that that was kind of a parallel. And it's not just what we see. It's the inside stuff that starts to stuff that we can't see that starts to make the car shake excessively or have poor vibrations to the point where again, the car is not able to run as it should. So sometimes our lack of focus on what expectations we're holding for ourselves or what definition we're using and constantly beating ourselves up that we're not meeting it. Sometimes those things go unnoticed until we start to fall apart or still until pieces of our pie start to fall away or start to fall apart. So it's important to regularly on an ongoing basis, assess what needs to happen in our lives to help us feel and create and meet these definitions of those.

Yeah.

Okay. Another thing with alignment was that it can help the tires, the things that meet the road, the, when the rubber hits the road, it helps them perform properly longer. It helps them with stand those potholes and all of the impact of the hard stuff, hitting it longer. So when you keep the tires aligned, it helps them perform better monger. It helps maintain the entire vehicle handling so that the vehicle doesn't pull, despite the fact that you're trying to go straight, if your wheels become unaligned or, or unbalanced, you are starting to pull to the right or pull to the left, despite the fact that you are trying to keep the steering wheel straight, that is like life again, if we're not being intentional about creating that balance and all of our areas of our life, or we're not acknowledging that, Hey, my professional piece of my pie is going to have to need more time and energy right now.

And this is how I'm going to intentionally set up my during this time. If we don't do that, then we start to shake and we start to pull off in one direction and leave the other one on behind. And it starts to damage those, those areas. Okay. Okay. So that was my comparison to a tire alignment and balance in what we're talking about. Okay. So let's get to number five, which is the N okay. I really wanted another B in here because I wanted to say that boundaries, but I'm going to say no, no, no, no. You know that song by Destiny's child? Something about no, no, no. That's okay. I can't remember the song and I certainly am not going to sing it, but you have to create boundaries. You have to say no. Okay. Ladies let's count on the count of three.

Let's all say no one, two, three, no. Okay. So I hope that you said that with me now, my question is, did you die? Did anybody throw stones at you? Did you know, is your life over? No, no, no, no, no. It's not because there are times ladies that we have to say, no, we have, you have to be able to prioritize. Especially if you've taken the time to define what that balance is, define what piece of the pie you're going to have to spend more energy in and what you're going to do to protect the other pieces during that season, you're going to have to prioritize. And sometimes you're going to have to say, no, you're going to have to put boundaries in place and say no, sometimes. So we'll leave that one there. I know that one's hard, but you know, I encourage you to try it, try saying no.

Sometimes if it means that you're going to add something to your life, just if you're already feeling busy and you're already feeling like you can't sleep and you're already feeling like you don't have a time to breathe in your day and your schedule is managing you, instead of you managing your schedule, then saying yes to something else is probably not the right choice for you. All that's going to do is not serve you, your family. So practicing now, okay. The next letter, and this is number six, and this is, is claim it have courage and care. Okay. That's overboard. It's three CS. It's three things. But I just want you to think about once you've set, those knows once you set those boundaries, claim it and stick to it. Okay. And then, you know, have that courage to continue to make decisions that serve you and your family and your friends and your areas of your life pie in a positive way.

Make sure that what you are saying yes, to what you are defining as your balance, as your seasons for your certain pieces of your pie, make sure that that's serving you and it is serving whatever it is God is calling you to do. Because part of that balance too, in that definition is that spiritual, which is what is God telling you to do? What is the Holy spirit guiding you to do? And are you being intentional about making the time to do that and to spend time in that piece of your pie? Okay. And then care. I added care in there because care is something that I think for us, it's just really hard. It's hard because we don't take time to care for ourselves. We got to care for ourselves spiritually. We got to care for ourselves. Physically. We got to care for ourselves financially.

We got to care for others, but you've got to make sure that you are doing something to take care of yourself. It's the same thing. Like when you're on an airplane and it says, put your oxygen mask on yourself first, before you help your child, same thing. You cannot help others if you are not helping yourself. So you've got to work that in. Okay, ladies, the last step, the seventh step, the E is empower. The word empower means to give someone the authority to do something, to allow authorized commission. Well, I am allowing you. I'm authorizing you. I'm commissioning you to walk in bold courageous action to be exactly who it is. God called you to be and give yourself grace, give yourself mercy, give yourself forgiveness, allow yourself to be imperfect because that's how God's created you and allow yourself to have an ongoing assessment of what you're doing in your daily action.

What you're doing in your weekly action, your monthly action, what you're doing to achieve your goals, acknowledge what you're doing to achieve those things. You are enough. You are meeting all of the expectations that you need to because you're creating that intention reality around. I don't even know if that's word, you're creating that intention to be purposeful about what you're doing. None of us are perfect. So don't hold yourself to that. You are exactly who God's called you to be. You're equipped with exactly what God has given you to be successful in all the areas of your life. Whatever's going on in your season. That's placed there. You're equipped for it. Okay. I've got a couple of other scriptures that I wanted to mention throughout this. Of course, you know, I got long-winded and I got sidetracked and I didn't mention it. But we, we talked about Ecclesiastes three, one through eight, about the seasons.

I want to talk about Philippians four, eight. I think it is. So finally whatever's true. Whatever's honorable. Whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely. Whatever is commendable. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things, fine. Those things. When you are in that alignment stage, when you are aligning yourself to the truth and to the word of God, make sure that you have that focus on those things that are true and honorable and just, and pure and lovely pay attention to those things and work those things in to your plans. Something else that I thought of was the story of Mary and Martha in Luke, Luke 10 38 through 42. Now, as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.

But Martha was distracted with much serving and she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve you alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her. Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. Oh, that one is convicting, especially for a person like me. And probably a lot of you ladies listening, we are always trying to be everything to everybody wearing all the hats and we net, we want to juggle all the balls and we never want to stop juggling. We never want to take off any hats. And the reality is we were not created for that. There's a time and a place and we cannot forget what it is we're called to do.

We're called the praise. We're called to worship. We're called to pray. We're called to nurture our spiritual piece of our pie. We've got to make sure that we put time in our day to do that, to go to the one who makes us strong, where we are weak, when we're feeling that overwhelm and that stress, we ask the Holy spirit to guide us so that we know where do we put our intentions during this difficult season? Or where do I find the joy and the love and the peace again, when I'm feeling anxious or when I'm feeling troubled or when I'm feeling like I can't find that joy anymore, go to the Holy spirit, go to God, go to Jesus and ask him for his guidance because we cannot do it alone. And we weren't meant to do it alone. Also, another thing that it reminded me of is, is call a sister, call a friend, email me, get on, get on my website and, and hit one of those contact me buttons.

And I'll get on the phone with you, reach out to somebody that is like-minded ethic, and that can help you create that plan that you might need help with. Don't suffer in silence. None of us are going through this, that another sister can't help with. I mean, I think it's very purposeful that when I'm going through something, my sister, friend is not. So my sister friends ready and equipped to be there in my circle, in my life for that time and that timing. And I think that you're that rock for somebody else. In other ways, all of us ebbs and flows. All of us are not in crisis at once. And I think that's purposeful. God knows exactly who we need and when we need them. So don't forget to use your community when you are in a place where you're feeling a little unbalanced, you might just need a little bit of that help the other great thing.

And my pastor mentioned this during a Bible study a few weeks ago, this is so interesting. And I think it plays right into us as women and, and this whole notion that we have to be perfectly balanced and we have to wear all the hats and do all the things for everyone. And we are busy, busy, busy all the time. Well in the Bible, God is always calling men to him to go. He's telling men to go, go to the mountain, go, go, go, go get your pickup, your nets, and come or drop your nets and come. He's always telling them to go. But when he goes, when he is talking to women, he goes to where the woman is. He goes to the woman at the well, he goes to Mary and Martha's house. So when Jesus comes to us, he's coming to us.

Why? Because we are women. We are doers. We are juggling. We are being everything to everyone. And he knows that he designed us. He knows how we're wired. He knows how we're built, but I just wanted to, that was such a revelation to me where, you know, he's always telling the men to come to him, but he's always coming to us. So he's right there. And he will come to you where you are doing what you do. So I wanted to point that out because I thought that was awesome. I think there was one more step a scripture. Okay. Yeah, it was prowess, Proverbs 16, 11 adjust balance and scales are the Lords. All the weights in the bag are his work. So it, again, it's just a reminder that we are not supposed to be perfectly balanced without God. We have weaknesses that are made strong in him.

Guess what? We can't be made strong if we don't have the weaknesses. If we don't have those areas that need his help, we need him for that. So don't be afraid to ask for that. All right. Let's review because I've gone a little bit longer than I wanted to go, but I hopefully it made sense and hopefully it wasn't too rambly, but let's go through the seven steps again. We're going to balance, we're going to defend it defined it. Excuse me. We're going to assess on an ongoing basis, we're going to laugh and loosen up and give ourselves some grace. We're going to align ourselves to the truth and make sure that our actions are in alignment with the definitions that we've created. And we're not holding ourselves to a, a false or higher standard than is necessary for the season. We are going to say, no, we're going to claim it.

We're going to walk in courageous action and we're going to care for ourselves. And finally, we're going to be empowered to do what it is God's calling us to do and empowered to make these adjustments on an ongoing basis so that we can create that intentional balance in our lives. All right, sister, friends, thank you so much for listening. And if this helped you, or if you have a sister friend that you think this might help, please do me a solid and share it with them. Just click it and send it to them on a text or post it in your Instagram or Facebook stories. That is what helps us get the podcast showing up for more people when they are searching for content that might, they might find in this podcast. I love you sisters. I will see you on the inside of the Facebook group!