Have you ever wondered how you're supposed to follow all your passions that you have?
But still honor your body when it tells you no to all of the productive things
you're supposed to be getting done.
Well, in today's episode, I'm going to cover that because I've been struggling with this
myself. So I'm going to share with you how I move through this myself.
Let's get into it.
You're listening to the Soul Aligned Self-Care Podcast.
I'm your host, Tina Stinson, and I had a stroke at the age of 39 from stress and burnout
that shook my world.
Now I'm laying it all out.
The deep-level self-care practices and mindset shifts that I needed that kept me healthy,
balanced, and thriving.
Join me in this intimate space as we explore healing, resilience, and a soul's journey to alignment.
This is where real conversations about deep-level self-care happen.
Let's get into it.
Hey guys, welcome back.
And thank you for joining me.
Today, I'm talking about juggling your passions and your responsibilities.
And the reason that this has come up in my life right now is because I've been diving
into human design. And if you haven't dove into human design yet, then I highly recommend
it. It's so much fun.
It's so interesting.
And everybody I talk to that starts to learn more about it.
Always says the same thing.
It's so like spot on.
It like labels me for, I hate using the word label because I always say labels are for
cans, but it just like the way it describes me, maybe that's a better way to say it is
so on point.
It's so on point.
It just makes you feel so heard, but it also gives you so many kind of directions and things
that you could use in your life being this type of person.
And I'm not going to begin to explain to you about human design because I am just a beginner
myself, but I was just on the human design hive, which is a human design podcast.
And I want to give a shout out to my friend Dana over there.
And I'll be sharing that episode with you guys at some point.
I had so much fun talking to her, but she has so much knowledge.
So if you get a chance, go and listen to her podcast about human design.
If you're curious, the human design hive, I'll put that in the show notes.
So to get started, I've been diving into that and very simply, uh, very simply said, can't
talk today.
I am a generator, which is, I think one of the most common things you could be.
And obviously I'm not going to get into the whole human design thing, but my authority is
my, I have a sacred authority, which is basically like trusting my gut.
Like that's what I'm supposed to do.
I'm supposed to trust my gut, which as I said earlier, it just makes so much sense for
me because that's, you know, that's what feels right to me.
That's so funny because my gut tells me that's what's right for me.
But it's, um, it's a very yes or no answer, right?
So, um, it's like when someone asks me a question, it's either a hell yes or just a solid
no.
There's not like a, there's not like a in between, really.
And so I've been trying to honor that because when you follow your true direction of your
human design, it guides you in the places that you're supposed to be and it guides you
into the situations and the opportunities that you're supposed to receive in your life.
And, um, I mean, which makes sense, you know, like if we really follow, everybody says that
to you.
If you follow what makes you happy, then, you know, things just fall into place for you.
Like, but it's so hard to relax and do that, right?
And as the title of this podcast said, how do you follow all these things that feel so
right to you and then look at the things that are supposedly a hard no and, but look at
them and say, oh my god, but these are my responsibilities.
Like, so what's my work around here?
Like, if that's a hard no.
And so some of the things I'm going to use it as an example or some of the things in my
business, because that's what I've been working on.
I've been going through all the things I do in my business and asking myself the question,
is this a hell yes or is this a no?
And if it's, if it's a no, then I really explore, should I get rid of this?
Should I keep doing this?
Why is it a no?
Is it just a part of it that's a no?
And I think that is a, a deeper question that we have to ask when we're following
our gut, right?
Because when I talk about the podcast, I love doing the podcast.
I think it's so much fun.
I love having all the guests on.
I get to talk to the most amazing people, meet the most amazing people.
It's just so much fun.
But one of the things I don't like doing with the podcast is the show notes.
I just, it's just a drag.
It's just a drag.
And so the way I work in my businesses, I write a blog every week.
And then I usually do the podcast based on the topic of the blog.
And so it's very aligned.
And so what I decided to do was a compromise.
Now what I use when I, when I'm trying to like set boundaries in my life or make decisions
like this is a tool that I use with my clients that I call the three Ds.
And it's ditch, delegate or do.
So like when you're trying to like get rid of all the things on your to do list, right?
And the reason this has to do with boundaries, because it's about learning to say no.
And that's why I use this in boundaries.
But I wanted to use this for the things that came up as a hard no.
Like if it's something that's a responsibility, that's something that I feel like I still have
to do as a part of my life, then what, how can I do this and not have it feel like a hard
no in my body?
And so with the show notes, what I decided to do was delegate partially, okay?
And so let me explain.
So instead of ditching it all together because I can't, right?
I could hire someone to do my show notes and to do all the work with my podcast, but I
want to do my own writing.
So right now, like that's the decision I made.
I don't want somebody else to write my show notes.
I wouldn't mind somebody else, you know, editing it or doing some of the other work,
maybe the promotion on social media, I wouldn't mind that at all.
But writing, I really like writing my own stuff and having it come from myself.
And so what I did was I took the blog post, which as I said earlier, it was totally, it's
totally aligned with the topic of the podcast.
Like this week, I wrote a blog post on this topic.
And I take that and I put it into like chat GPT or something like that.
Yes, I'm using AI, that's right.
Don't come at me.
But I'm taking my blog post that I wrote and then I asked Chappy Cheat to create show notes
for that blog post.
Now, it doesn't come out perfect, but it very quickly reorganizes it and sometimes shortens
it and makes it more to the point if that makes sense.
It's perfect for show notes, right?
And it works out pretty good and it saves me a ton of time.
And it makes it so that I don't mind doing it.
It's not a hard no anymore.
It's not necessarily a hell yes, but what is a hell yes is my podcast, right?
So it's not perfect, right?
But what I'm doing is I'm saving time, I'm reducing friction and I'm adding more happiness
to my life.
I'm making it so that I can enjoy the things that I'm passionate about more by reducing friction.
I call this decluttering and it's one of the things I love doing.
The most with my clients.
I love going through every aspect of their life, the way they do things, the processes in
their lives and decluttering them to the point and then adding back in some happiness or
joy or comfort to it.
So it's like reducing the friction, adding happiness back in, right?
And so that's what I did with this one thing that was a hard no for me.
So instead of saying to myself, oh, I can't do the podcast anymore because the show notes
are a hard no.
And I just said to myself, well, I'm going to use this tool that's going to make it easier
to do the show notes.
And so it doesn't feel so much as a hard no anymore.
And so it makes it easier for me.
And what I've been doing since I learned this about myself is I've been going through all
the things in my life, you know, especially my business.
I've been doing this a lot lately and asking myself the question, like I said earlier,
is this a yes or no?
And it's been absolutely amazing.
I highly recommend, first of all, that you learn more about human design and yourself.
And also even if you're not a generator, or you're nothing like me, and even if you're
not interested in human design, honoring the way your body feels is deep, level self-care,
right?
So check in with yourself, honoring how your body feels, and then doing something about it
to make yourself more comfortable.
So like, you know, if you check in with yourself and you're perfectly happy, then that's great.
Do more of that.
But if you check in with yourself and you're feeling stressed, then you go into why you're
feeling stressed.
How can you reduce that friction?
And how can you make yourself happier in whatever aspect of the life that stress is coming
from?
Okay?
And so this isn't just about human design.
This is about taking care of yourself.
And so that's why I just made this amazing connection between human design and self-care.
Actually, Dana from the human design hive was on my podcast once too.
So I'll put the link to that in the show notes also.
I have to share with you guys as I'm recording this, I'm sitting at my desk, and there is
like some kind of a bug convention going on.
I have a plant next to my desk.
There is currently like this gigantic ant on it, and then also a gigantic spider, and
it's very much distracting me because I haven't seen bugs in a long time because it's
February and I'm on the top of an icy mountain right now.
So I just had to share that with you.
It's very distracting.
So I'm moving back into honoring my body and taking care of myself, going through this process
and being very intentional with it has been so eye-opening because I do this with my clients
all the time, right?
But I don't do it within my own life all the time.
I do it when something comes up, but I don't intentionally go through things that aren't
giving me any problems whatsoever and really asking myself the question.
And what's interesting about doing this work is sometimes we do things in our life out
of habit and we don't necessarily want to do them, right?
And then when you really take a good look at them, you're like, why am I doing this?
Why am I doing this?
So some of the things I eliminated that I was doing in my business was I was posting
my blog on Substack and on Medium.
And I just felt like I'll get more reach from that if I put my blog post out there.
And I did it for a while.
I think I did it for like six months.
And it wasn't a ton of work doing this little extra step.
I hated doing it.
I liked writing my blog.
I liked posting my blog when sharing it with you guys, but then taking the same blog and adding
it on Substack and then adding it on Medium and then having to do the social media post
on top of that.
It was a lot.
And so I was like, what am I getting out of this and what am I putting into it?
And I wasn't really getting much out of it because I wasn't going to promote it on there
and I wasn't going to push it on either one of those platforms.
I just thought, if it's on there, maybe someone will see it, but we all know how that works
out.
So I eliminated both of those things.
I don't know either one of those anymore.
And it was this huge relief.
So where I didn't think it was much, like I just kept doing it out of habit out of one
of those tasks that I do every week.
Once I eliminated it, it felt so good.
It felt so good.
It's kind of like how when you go into your closet, you clean the closet out, you give
stuff to goodwill, maybe you sell some stuff, maybe you put some in the little clothing
dumpster, whatever you call it.
That's goodwill.
Sometimes I actually bring my stuff to a thrift store or if it's in really good shape,
I bring it to this thrift store that I absolutely love to go to and they donate all the money
to hospice.
So I like bringing stuff there.
But everything that's left over, I throw in the, what I called the, you know, the goodwill
dumpster or whatever you want to call it.
So like you do all that stuff, right?
You get rid of all that stuff.
Doesn't it feel so good?
It feels so refreshing.
You clean out your closet.
You're making space for new things to come in, new clothing, new shoes that want to find
a home in my closet, whatever.
You're making space for new things, but it feels so good to clear stuff out.
That's exactly what this feels like doing this whole process.
What am I doing in my personal life right now that I don't want to do anymore?
Why am I doing that?
Like I haven't gone through my personal life yet.
I'm really working my way through the business.
And as I said, it's, it's really, once you do that intentionally, you realize that you're
going through the motions and you're doing all of these things that you didn't even realize
you don't want to do.
And then once you clear them out, it feels so good.
And then not only that, once you clear them out, you're not only reducing stress, reducing
friction and improving the chances of avoiding burnout altogether, but you're creating
this space.
You're creating more room for happiness.
You're creating more space for you to spend on your passions, the things that are hell
yes, right?
And so once I realize this, I had to share it with you guys because I would encourage you
to go through this process.
So a way that you can go about doing this was, you know, so maybe you don't have your own
business.
Maybe you want to do it in your personal life.
Maybe you just want to do it in your work life.
If you have some of the freedoms that you have to get rid of certain duties or to change
them or to delegate them, then I would encourage you to do that.
And you could use the 3D model.
The 3D model started with me decluttering my closet.
That's how I came up with it because when you declutter a closet or any type of space,
you have a couple of piles, right?
So you have the pile where you're going to throw something out.
You have the pile that way you're going to donate it and then you have the pile of stuff
you're going to keep.
And so that's where that idea came from.
But it was ditch, get rid of it all together, just delete it, don't do it anymore, delegate
which is where you get creative.
So I always tell people, delegation doesn't mean complete delegation all the time.
Sometimes it's partial like what I spoke about with the show notes.
So I'm still doing some of the work, but I'm delegating some of the work to AI, right?
So it's the same thing with, you know, things in your life, processes in your life.
So say you don't want to, you hate cooking dinner or you don't want to cook dinner every night
for your family.
How can you delegate that?
How can you do that?
Well, you could delegate some of it to another person, you could delegate some of it to going
out, you could delegate some of it to meal prepping, you can delegate some of it to your
kids if they're old enough to prepare even sandwiches, right?
And you couldn't make it so that maybe you're only cooking one or two nights a week instead
of seven, right?
And so delegation isn't always like the perfect like resolution, you know, it's just could be
a partial resolution that create enough space and reduce enough friction to just make you
that much happier and give you that much more time too, right?
So if you're not cooking dinner seven days a week and it's somebody else's responsibility,
maybe at least two days, then you have those two days to do something you love, two days
to come home and read a book, two days to go for a run after work, two days to maybe spend
time with friends, two days to spend time with your kids, right?
So whatever it might be, it's amazing some of the things that you can create space for
and it's also amazing how good it feels when you start to like delegate or even ditch
some of these things.
Now the due part is sometimes there's stuff we have to do that we're not passionate about
and our body says hard no to it but we still have to do it, right?
Like we have to get up in the morning, we have to floss our teeth, okay?
Right?
Maybe not everybody flosses their teeth but that's something we have to do and I'm not passionate
about it but I know it's good for me.
You know those days when you're not feeling good and you have to get up and get your kids
ready for school, right?
You might not be passionate about it that morning, you love your kids but no you're not passionate
about getting your kids to school and out of the house by seven o'clock.
I always found that ridiculous by the way when my kids were younger my kids are all grown
now but I always wondered why?
Why do these kids need to be up so early?
Why does anybody have to be up this early, right?
Now I wake up at five o'clock in the morning and I love it but it's because I don't have
to go anywhere.
I don't have any responsibilities, my kids are all grown.
So there's different pressures on me now.
So there's, I acknowledge that not everything is perfect and you know it's not all rainbows
and butterflies and just working on your passions, 100% of the time we all have responsibilities
and things that we have to do from time to time that we're not going to love but you can
make all these little bite-size improvements in all these different areas in your life
and create so much space, right?
So you're creating space, sometimes physical space, right?
And you're creating time.
That's what I love about it.
You get to create time.
That's one of our most valuable resources this time.
So how cool, even if you like say you have ten different things in your life and you're
going to kind of reframe them and maybe delegate some of the things in there, maybe ditch
some of the things but you're going to kind of reorganize them and reduce friction and
stuff and you create a good 20 minutes out of your day, 20 minutes.
How much does that add to weekly, right?
Think about how much time that adds.
What would you give for an extra 20 minutes to do what you choose to do with it, right?
I mean, that's amazing to be able to be able to create that for yourself, okay?
But you have to be intentional because you can create this space and then you can create
that time for yourself.
But then it's about setting those boundaries and knowing what you're passionate about, honoring
your body and check in with yourself from time to time and being intentional about adding
the things back in that you're passionate about and not adding more crap that you hate,
right?
And the only way that you can really do that is by checking in with yourself and asking
yourself those questions like I asked myself, like is this a hell yes or is this a no?
And if it's not a hell yes, how can I make this more of a hell yes?
How can I make it lean more in that direction or how can I make it 100% in a hell yes?
Now one of the ways you could do that, I shared, I think it was last week, I shared with
you a self-care practice that I go, take five and it's really just, it's about taking five
minutes to take a few deep breaths and asking yourself the question, how do I feel right
now?
What do I need right now?
So I will put a link for that, I made a quick recording about it, it's super quick and
short.
So I'll put a link for that also in the show notes and so try that.
But if you need more work with this, I'm actually creating some programs where you could
work one on one with me and I'm going to be focusing on very particular things like self-care
and mindset work and decluttering what I was talking about.
So doing this work with you in your life and helping you do this work one on one with you
and I'm going to have three different topics.
So one is going to be like self-care and reducing stress and anxiety, the other one is going
to be focusing on adding in self-love and then the third one is going to be life-purpose.
And so there's going to be three different packages that you could work with me privately
on.
So it's going to be coming soon in the next couple of weeks, I'm just trying to create
them and tweak them a little bit so that they're just right for you guys.
And so keep your eye out for that, I'll definitely announce it on the podcast.
But for now, I would like you to try to check out human design if it sounds interesting
to you and check out Dana's podcast and then also on top of that, start honoring yourself
and asking you the questions, what am I passionate about and figuring out how to add more joy
and reduce the friction in your life.
Okay guys, until next week, oh but before I go, on Friday I have a special guest on, it's
my friend, Marisa Moon, she just wrote a book called Not So Fast, it's about intermittent
fasting but it's more than that.
It's just this powerhouse book about health and wellness.
And so I had her on the podcast so I would encourage you to tune in, it was a great interview
that gets released on Friday.
Okay guys, until next week, love you, bye.
