Tina 00:00:00 Are you the type of person who always feels like you need to be doing, doing, doing, being productive? You never sit still. You always feel like you need to do more instead of just allowing yourself to be sometimes and enjoy that. You feel guilt. Maybe you feel shame when you're not doing something. If this is you, then today's episode is all about how you could start to step out of this and allow yourself to just enjoy being sometimes. Let's get into it. You're listening to the Soul Online 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 the soul's journey to alignment. this is where real conversations about deep level self-care happen. Let's get into it. Hey guys, it's so good to be back to the podcast again.
Tina 00:01:17 I spent a couple of weeks replaying some of my most popular or most downloaded episodes, and now I am back. And I have also tons of guest episodes coming up that I'm so excited about. Guest episodes are released on Fridays, and so I released the solo episodes Wednesdays and then the guests on Friday, so you have plenty to listen to all week. I want to thank everyone who joins me every week and listens to the podcast. I really, really appreciate you and I appreciate the time that you spend with me. And if you're feeling it, could you please just leave me a review on Apple Podcasts? It helps get the show in front of more people. And if you do this, definitely reach out to me on social media, I would think like to thank you personally. So on Instagram, I'm either at Tina Stinson coach or at Soul aligned self-care. I always forget to boost the podcast Instagram. I'm really bad at it, so definitely follow me over there. I would love to create a community of all the podcast listeners over there would be great.
Tina 00:02:24 also, I want to share with you I have a new free seven day challenge for you guys that I created. The reason I created this challenge was, one of the biggest excuses or roadblocks I get from people when they're trying to practice self-care is one first time is like the biggest one. I don't have time for self-care. and the other one is like, they don't know what to do because they don't have enough time. They feel like they don't have enough time to do the self-care that they kind of label as self-care. And so they do nothing at all where self-care could really take anywhere from like 5 to 15 minutes every day. So I created this seven day trial challenge to help relieve you of stress and overwhelm in your life and each. So when you sign up, you'll get an email every day starting that day. So you get to start right away and you'll have a new practice. I created a video for each day, so you'll get a new practice every day that takes takes either 5 to 15 minutes, so it's not very long.
Tina 00:03:28 I share journal prompts. I give away a few freebies in there for you guys, meditations and stuff. So definitely sign up for the challenge, especially if you don't have time for self-care. This is one of those things I want to introduce to as many people as possible, so that they know that self-care doesn't have to take long, and you can fit it into your everyday life. The link for the seven day challenge will be in the show notes, so definitely check it out. Okay guys let's get into the tape. Today's episode that came out of my mouth really weird, but I'm not even going to try to repeat it. So today I'm talking about, allowing yourself to just be. So this came up for me this past Sunday, and I've been sharing it with all my clients, and I even did a live on aura. I don't know if you guys know or not, but I do do lives on aura and this podcast does get streamed onto or which is really cool, or as a meditation app where I am a creator.
Tina 00:04:29 And so I've been sharing this with everyone because it really came up for me very strong on Sunday because I was recently away for like a month, I was still working, somewhat. I was taking client calls and stuff like that, but I wasn't in creation mode. I batched a lot of the stuff that I normally do for, the community, and so that I could rest a little bit and have some fun with my family and my kids and I, I came back, so I had to drive home. It was a long drive from North Carolina to New York, and I don't like, I don't particularly. I used to like driving. I don't particularly like driving a long distance or driving for a really long time. I do stop and stay overnight, usually in Virginia or Pennsylvania or somewhere in the middle. because I get tired after, like, you know, the longest I can go is like 8 or 9 hours, which is just too much as far as I'm concerned. About five hours is really like my comfort level, if I was going to be honest.
Tina 00:05:29 So anyway, I come home, I'm exhausted, but I really don't have to work. I don't schedule things on Fridays or Mondays. I get home on a Thursday so I really don't have to work until like Monday. I do some office work and stuff like that. And so Sunday I'm also. I also farm garlic. A lot of you might not know that, but I farm garlic. I'm a very small operation. It's like my first year that I'm going to really be going to the market, but it is a lot of work, so I'm getting the garlic ready too. And my first market is next Sunday. And so and it's my first and only market because after that they might not have any more. So I have to kind of like sell all of it. So there's a little bit of pressure. So I'm trying to like do all these things. I feel like I have to like organize myself for work. I have to get the garlic ready, even though I have a full week to get this garlic ready, which is plenty of time.
Tina 00:06:23 I was feeling stressed on Sunday. I was just feeling it. I felt like I had to do do do, but I was tired. I was still kind of tired and like hungover from my trip. And I know all of you understand what that means, right? So I was putting all this pressure on myself to work more on the garlic and organize my thoughts for the next week, and getting back to work, getting back into my business. And I just realized I wasn't just allowing myself to rest and be, which is what I needed. And so I had to like, really be honest with myself. I had to calm myself out and just and just ask myself the question, why are you not allowing yourself to just be and relax without any guilt, without any shame? Why am I putting so much pressure on myself when it's completely unnecessary? So what I did is I like talked through it in my head. I was kind of like, okay, this is like a whole week Monday through Saturday because the market's on Sunday.
Tina 00:07:20 Is that enough time to get all this garlic ready? I have like a thousand cloves of not cloves, bulbs of garlic. And that's plenty of time. I could if I really wanted to, I could get it done in two days if I worked for the entire day. So doing a little bit each day, I also braid the garlic. I make it look really pretty. I sometimes decorate it with flowers, so there's a little bit of work behind it. It's my first market. I don't really know what I'm doing, so I'm sure stuff's going to come up. That surprises me, you know? And so, but I'm like, is it enough time this week? And I'm like, yeah, that's plenty of time. Especially since Friday and Saturday I don't really do any work within my business, so I can devote those two full days to getting myself ready. So I was like, yes, this is plenty of time. And then the other question I asked myself was, do I really need to sit down and organize my thoughts for my work week? So Mondays is kind of usually an off day.
Tina 00:08:16 I've been doing lives for or on Mondays, and sometimes I do a little office work, but I don't have to. I've definitely started my week on Tuesday. My whole intention when I started my business was to create a business where I have a four day weekend. That was that was my a very strong, important core value for me working Tuesday through Thursday. Right. And I know that sounds crazy, right? But it's possible. Anything is possible. So I've been trying to build this business this way, and sometimes I stray a little bit, like I'm doing my Monday lives. I'm changing that because I'm, like, becoming more aware that I'm, like, moving outside of my comfort zone, what I originally wanted. And so honestly, I don't need to organize my thoughts on Sunday if I'm not really going to start my work week until Tuesday. I could even get up Tuesday morning and organize my workweek and just be absolutely fine with everything I do. And so I had to get honest with myself.
Tina 00:09:17 You know, a lot of times we put pressure on ourselves to always do, do do we hold value in the doing? And I had to just be honest with myself and say, it's okay for me to just be. It's okay for me to just relax, read a book, be on the couch, you know, watch a movie, whatever I want to do. It's okay for me to do this. And I shouldn't feel bad about it at all. At all. And so I allowed myself to do that. I had to talk through it, but I allowed myself to do it. And we all, I think most of us do this to ourselves, and some of us never allow ourselves to just be. And I used to be that way. I used to never allow myself to sit still. I always my mentality was I always needed to be doing. I've always been self-employed, so it's always like, if you're not doing, you're not making money. I now know that this is not true.
Tina 00:10:10 You can make money when you're, you know, in a state of peace and relaxation. Things still flow into your life. And so this is a mindset that I had to shift over years. And I've definitely been successful shifting this mindset. But it's still creeps in, as I said. And I had to talk myself through it. And so I wanted to share that with you guys today. And just to kind of share with you the reminder that you're allowed to just be, and you're allowed to not feel guilt or shame about it. And where this kind of stems from, I believe, is from a very young age. We're just like, trained to always be productive and doing and doing doing, you know, when we're babies were born, we're not doing anything. We're not producing anything, and we are valued and we're worthy of all the love and everything, right? We're completely whole when we're babies, and we never look at a baby and say, why isn't that baby doing anything? Why are they so lazy? Why aren't they productive? We're never saying that, right? So when does that shift? And I think it's just a slow shift.
Tina 00:11:17 You know, even when we go to school, even in elementary school, where we're expected to act and do things a certain way in order to be accepted into society. Right. And of course, there's certain things that, you know, you know, keep everything very level in the world, like we're all supposed to wear pants, right? We're all supposed to go out and have pants on. But like, I'm not talking about, like, those types of rules. I'm just talking about the expectation to always be achieving and, productive and doing things a certain way. There's a lot of pressures, and I don't believe that this is a natural state for human beings. We're we're perfectly worthy. We're completely whole. And enough exactly as we are right now. We don't need to be productive. We don't need to be making a certain amount of money. We don't need to have a certain type of job in order to be valued in society. That's a label that we place. That's that's something that is a decision that we make.
Tina 00:12:21 It's our decision whether we're going to judge people on these things. And I am making the decision not to judge people on how productive they are, what they do for a living, or how much money they make, or you know, how busy they are, you know, think about when you talk to your friends, how how being busy is looked at. It's looked at as like this cool thing. It's like you talk to your friend and I'm like, oh, how are you? And they're like, oh my God, I'm so busy. I'm doing this and I'm doing the da da da da da da. And then, you know, it's like a badge of honor. People wear this like a badge of honor, you know? And if if someone said, oh, you know, oh, I've been so relaxed lately. I've just been laying around reading books. Oh, it's been so nice. And yeah, I'm not doing much of anything. You know, it's kind of looked at.
Tina 00:13:07 Not in the highest way. Right. And so, I think that's shifting, I really do. but I don't think it's shifting fast enough. I think we, we really need to be intentional about not judging people for productivity levels and for doing, doing, doing all the time. And we need to realize that enjoying life, is just being, you know, just being in your life, living your life. It's not about always doing, doing, doing. We're supposed to be able to be in a state of peace and allow ourselves to just be without any judgment, without any guilt, without any shame. And we should be able to enjoy that state. And I think this is just like, really a really, really important. I don't know a thing to notice in your life. Like, notice when you're putting pressure on yourself to be doing when you don't need to be. Notice when you're doing that and call yourself out and have that conversation like I had with myself. Also, don't use it as an excuse.
Tina 00:14:17 Like don't use it just being as an excuse not to step into your life and not to do things. So what I mean by that is, you know, spending too much time not doing anything because you're afraid to get out in the world, or you have fear or you have some kind of social anxiety. Don't use it as an excuse for that, you know. So allow yourself to be and enjoy your life, but at the same time still be doing things in your life and enjoying and living your life, if that makes sense. It's just a fine line, I think. Right? So today's episode is all about calling yourself out And allowing yourself to just be, you know, in the moment, enjoy those little spaces. I want to share one more story with you guys that I, I also shared when I did the live on aura because, it was a good lesson for me. So as I said at the beginning of this episode, this is something I definitely struggle with, and I have to be very intentional about allowing myself to relax.
Tina 00:15:25 it's also kind of known as a trauma response to always be doing, doing, doing. Okay. And so this is why it's so important to me to calm myself out and allow myself this peace in my life. And so sometimes, and I do realize that I'm privileged to be able to do this. But sometimes when I'm having a really, really bad day, I, I just call out like, I don't work right? So if I don't have any, client appointments, I won't cancel client calls for something like this. But if I don't have any client appointments and I'm just having an off day and I don't feel good. I'll just go out for a run, go out for a walk, go out in the garden, just do something else. Sometimes I'll just shift for a little while and then come back to my work. Sometimes I'll just be like, all right, the day's over. I'm done. I do realize this is a privilege, but it's also a privilege that comes with a lot of responsibility.
Tina 00:16:15 When you're self-employed, you're you're responsible for creating your own salary, okay. Which comes with a lot of pressure. So with a lot of the privileges you get, you also get a lot of the pressures. But I do know that this is a privilege to be able to stop midday and just be like, okay, this isn't the day for me. I'm going to go for a nice run. I'm going to go for a nice walk, I'm going to go out in the garden, and I'm just going to be and enjoy my life. And because I can't because of the type of work I do, working with people, especially dealing with people who are struggling with stress, anxiety and burnout. Like, I can't come into that in a state of stress, anxiety and burnout myself. And so when I feel myself feeling off, I need to take a moment and get back. Get myself back into a more of a flow and a balanced feeling. And so this was a while back. I was just having a day.
Tina 00:17:13 And so I was like, you know what? I really just want to be in the garden, like all day, right? I just want to be out in the garden with my hands in the dirt. And so I went out there and I did that. I stayed in the garden all day. I barely looked at my phone. I texted my kids. I was like, I'm not going to be answering my phone today. If you need me, you know, call, call your grandfather. Just like I was just basically like, I'm checking out and I did. I checked out for the entire day I came in. I felt it felt so good. I was, like, filthy, covered with dirt. I had dirt underneath my fingernails. It just felt so good to just, like, do that all day. It's so meditative. It's so healing for me. I know it's to some people that might be a nightmare just being all covered in dirt and sweaty and working in the garden.
Tina 00:18:00 But for me, it's this very relaxing and very like, like I said, meditative, like meditative. I don't know what the right word is, but, it's so relaxed. I just, I'm in a zone when I'm in the garden. And so I came into the house and I didn't have that feeling of, oh, I just let a whole day go by it and get any work done. I didn't have that feeling at all. I didn't feel any of like, remorse or guilt or shame in any way, shape or form. I came into my office and I checked my computer, and it turns out that somebody bought a spot into my intensive program. Now my intensive, soul aligned, self-care intensive is like my signature program. It's my baby. I put all my work into it. I love this program. I love supporting people inside of this program. And, I just had some person that I didn't even know just sign up for it very randomly. So usually people don't just sign up for this program.
Tina 00:18:56 They they, you know, I usually have like some kind of a launch or sometimes a phone call with them. They don't usually just hop into it. And I don't even know who they are. They haven't even been in my world. And so to me, this was like a sign from the universe. Like when you allow things, when you allow yourself to just be and you're allowing in your life, instead of trying to control and push and just hustle all the time, things will flow into your life when you're allowing. I don't have to be doing, doing, doing to bring like, abundance into my life, to bring new clients into my life. I don't have to always be doing, doing, doing, doing to be able to bring that into my life. Just some of the work that I do on a daily basis, like doing the podcast, writing the blog, doing the lives that I do for free, that automatically connects me with my audience. It connects me with people.
Tina 00:19:52 It allows me to help people. It just brings me into their lives and it brings them into my lives. And if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. They're going to flow into my lives. No matter how much I try to control or force that, it's not going to happen. Right? So it's if you take a step back and you allow things to flow in your life, then the things that are supposed to come into your life, well, the people and the things that are supposed to come into your life will flow into your life. And so it was a good lesson for me to begin to just allow and allow myself to be and not try to control the outcome all the time. I don't know if I'll ever stop trying to control the outcome. I don't know if I'll ever stop. Like, I don't know, pushing myself forward. I don't think that it's all bad to do that, but I think it's all it is bad to do that all the time, if that makes sense.
Tina 00:20:50 You need downtime. You need to relax people also feel when you're forcing something. They feel the energy of the push, the hustle, the force. And when you are just allowing and you just like, kind of sit back and relax. As I said earlier, the things that are meant to come into your life will flow into your life. And it also when you allow things to just be and flow, it also allows the right things to come into your life. It allows the opportunities to come into your life that you don't even know exist. So when you're always controlling and pushing and trying to bring the things that you think you need into your life, the things that are meant to come into your life that you might not think you need, or things that you've never even thought of don't have the space to come in. And so when you allow and you relax and you allow that flow, the things that are meant to come into your life will, even if you've never imagined them before or never even thought that was an option, those things will have that space now to come and to your life, if that makes sense.
Tina 00:21:51 So I hope this was really helpful. I really wanted to do this podcast just to share one that, you know, this is definitely something I struggle with myself, and it's definitely something that has improved over the years with me, probably 80% improved, but I still struggle with it, and so it's still something I have to be intentional about sometimes and call myself out. And I wanted to share that with you guys to to just know that you're not alone when you feel these things also. it's not like anyone's fault. I think we're raised this way to always feel like we need to be producing, to be productive, to be doing, doing, doing. I think this is just like a societal expectation that needs to change. That is changing. And as I said earlier, we have the choice to help with that change by not buying into it. Right. And so I wanted to share this with you today so that just to bring into your awareness to be easy on yourself and allow yourself those times to just be.
Tina 00:22:59 Sometimes you need that space. We all need that space. I would say. We all need that space on a daily basis. We need to bring that that vibe, that energy into our life at least once a day, even if it's just for a short period of time. I hope that was helpful and I love you guys. I hope to see you on Friday for the guest episode. I can't remember who's coming on, but it's going to be a surprise. Okay? It's going to be a really good surprise. I have a bunch of people lined up that I did interviews with that I'm just so excited about. So if you like the guest episodes, definitely tune in on Friday. Definitely follow the show. And if you love the show, definitely leave a review for me on Apple. It helps get the show in front of more people. Okay guys, love you so much! Don't forget to sign up for the seven day challenge! That link will be in the show notes I'll see you next week.
Tina 00:23:54 Bye.
