Podcast Debut: Self-Care with Jean Edelman

The Word of the Week to help you pause, ponder and find balance in your life

Jean Edelman: Hi, I'm Jean Edelman. Welcome to my podcast. Each week we'll explore a word that I hope gives us perspective and provides an opportunity to pause and check in with ourselves. For decades, I've been a student of the healing arts, Reiki, traditional Chinese medicine, homeopathy, acupuncture, plant-based cooking and macrobiotic lifestyle. Join me on this journey and hear my word of the week.  

This week my theme revolves around boundaries. Do you have people in your life that always want to make everybody happy at their own expense? They overcommit, they overstress. They always are compromising what they want over the needs of others. Well, it's a new year and it's time to have some self-reflection and come up with a healthier plan for ourselves.  

You know what? It's okay to decline an invitation and not feel that we have to make an excuse. We can just simply say, I'm sorry, I can't make it, and I wish you a wonderful time. And it's okay to have an opinion that's different from the collective. We could start our sentence with, "With all due respect, I think," and fill in the blanks. It's okay to set boundaries with our time and our energy and our day.  

So here's an action item for the week. Think about an instance where we needed to say no, but we didn't.  

For example, we have a commitment that we need to meet somebody right after work, but something comes up and we don't have the courage to tell our boss or a coworker that we need to leave. And so there we are. We're tapping our foot, we're looking at our watch, and we're not listening to where we are. And we're trying to figure out an excuse for where we need to be when all we needed to do is have the courage to say, I'm happy to comply, but I need to leave at X time.  

And that's it. We don't owe an explanation. We don't owe anything, but we've set a boundary and then we're able to make our next commitment. So look for these opportunities. They happen all the time. We don't need to be rude when we do speak what we need. We can have a big smile and be as kind as we can be and then nobody will have their feathers ruffled. But we are happy and they're happy.   

So my word of the week is LINE.  

The L for Lesson. How many times are we going to have to get ourselves into a jam before we start speaking up? Well, spoiler alert - we come first. Our self-care is vital. So we get to control our time and we get to control our commitments and we can say thank you, but no. These are very powerful words.  

The I is for Improve. There's always, always, always room for improvement. That's the beauty of life, learning that we will not change others, but we need to just meet them where they are. And when everybody knows that, we have good self-care. Remember, we come first and we can't change them, but we can change ourselves. And tomorrow it's a new day and we can make it what we want.  

The N is for Natural. If we practice setting boundaries before we know it, it's going to be very, very natural for us. We will feel so much better. We'll feel lighter, we'll feel clearer. We won't be so stressed out. The days and our activities will flow and we'll be in alignment with ourselves and we can make the day what we want.  

And the E is for Eager. If we have more time for what's important to us, then we will be so eager to start our day. It will be our day planned as we want it to be.  

And so practice setting our boundaries. It's a new year, It's a new you, It's a new day. Have a wonderful week.