The Fascinating Womanhood Podcast - The Feminine Revolution
The Fascinating Womanhood Podcast is your guide to timeless principles for creating a joyful, loving, and fulfilling marriage. Join us each week as we explore practical strategies, inspiring stories, and empowering insights to help women embrace their feminine strengths, nurture deeper connections with their husbands, and thrive in every area of life.
The Fascinating Womanhood Podcast - The Feminine Revolution
Self Restraint - Choosing Discipline Over Impulse
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Welcome to Episode 1 of our first series: Ladylike Behavior!
This is a 5 part series discussing how to develop your Ladylike Behavior series, a bit of a lost topic that isn't discussed as much in our current culture.
In this first episode of the Ladylike Behavior series, we’re talking about what it really means to pause, choose wisely, and move with intention, even when your emotions are loud.
Because not everything deserves a reaction… and not every impulse deserves to be followed.
Each episode of this series builds on the last, so if this resonates, I hope you’ll follow along!
Hello everyone and welcome to the official Fascinating Womanhood podcast where we explore timeless principles for developing true femininity, inspiring authentic masculinity, and building strong, loving, and lasting relationships. I'm Cherry Lynn and I'm here with my mom, Dixie and Alyn Forsythe. Together we'll dive into the heart of what makes relationships thrive, offering practical wisdom and heartfelt conversations to help you live a more fulfilled and fascinating life.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so today we are talking about self-restraint. This is part of our five-part ladylike behavior series, our very first series we've ever done on our podcast. The five-part series includes, of course, self-restraint, which is today, self-discipline, graciousness, physical grace, and conversation skills. So today we're going to be covering the three types of self-restraint and three tips to improve this about your character. Mom, why is self-restraint so difficult for women? And can you talk a little bit about how self-restraint is different for women than it is for men? Or if it is.
SPEAKER_04Well, we're right. We tend to be a lot more verbal. We say, in fact, Bob told me once that I don't remember the exact statistics, but women say words in a day, like three times the amount of words in a day that men do. And so we we talk more, so we have to talk about things. And usually the things we talk about that we prefer to talk about tend to be more about people and relationships. Because it's what interests us. We're relationship oriented. Self-restraint can be difficult because sometimes, because we speak more, we have a lot of feelings, and sometimes we because we're less experienced in control, maybe, we sometimes say more than we wish we we did. It's it's it's it's a matter of kind of a maturity thing and teaching yourself uh to do some things more and do some things less. And it's a learning process, it's not, it's not, you're not born with it.
SPEAKER_02I feel like self-restraint is a lifelong skill that you can work on forever. I think women in particular, I think, like you just said, we're more emotional. We will we have a need to verbalize things more. It's it's just tough. And I don't know how men view self-restraint. I'd love to hear from a man, maybe interview a guy and ask him. Because you probably're probably just not aware of when they're being uh when they're restraining themselves.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think it's overall it's easier for them, because they're not as a relationship, Brian, to just keep stuff to themselves that maybe maybe they have the opposite thing where they should say more and don't. I, you know, it isn't just about talking, uh, but that's that's a big one for ladies.
SPEAKER_02I think this is a skill that will absolutely change your life. I know it has changed mine, and I'm so glad we're talking about it. But I do think it's important for us to talk about the three different types of self-restraint because when you think of self-restraint, I don't know about you, but I think of so many different things. I just my mind is flooded with all these different types of restraints. You can think of it in these main three ways. It will be a little easier for you to feel like you can not necessarily control it, but in a way manage it, I guess. Yeah, that's in yourself a little bit more. And all of these things are in your book, Fascinating Woman and Fascinating Woman. We wanted to go into it a little into a little bit more detail today because we hear about this so much, and a lot of our ladies are really interesting in learning about how to character build and to learn a little bit more about ladylike behavior. So we're gonna talk about physical restraint, social restraint, and emotional restraint. Let's start with physical. What are we talking about when we're when we mean physical restraint?
SPEAKER_04Could be something like you're gonna you feel like hitting somebody and you don't. But I think more often with adults, I mean, ideally, it would be more like I'm going to call that person and tell them what I think. You know, that's that's physically acting too. Or it could be with your children. I'm really upset. I'm going to ground them, I'm going to spank them, I'm going to whatever. It's a it's a physical action that you do, that you take. And it can also be a giveaway in your facial expressions, uh, your eating habits, your your ability to walk away from situations that that one is hard for a lot of us to know the limit, you know, being glued to your phone, fidgeting, fidgeting. I think the motto for the physical is just because you can act doesn't mean you should.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, when I think of physical, I also think of the way we we move. Like there's some women that you know plop themselves into a chair really heavily. It's just kind of how they sit. And that's how they feel.
SPEAKER_00You know, I feel this way. I'm exhausted, and I'm just gonna plop myself into the chair. I'm gonna, you know, sit with my legs wide open because it's comfortable right now. And I think all of those things, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_04And sometimes, sometimes people might do that so that someone will say, What is the matter? Right. So they'll get a reaction from someone.
SPEAKER_02You want attention, yeah, yeah. I think this is also language, um, which I know could kind of bleed into a little bit of the social and the emotional. But if you're using lots and lots of language, like that can kind of be a part of the physical. If you're pointing and being aggressive, I guess, with your body, like those kind of things uh are part of the physical too. Accusing, um the way you walk, the way you laugh.
SPEAKER_04Some people think it's that we shouldn't have restraint. I know. Yeah. They actually say, uh, you know, I can do what I want. Well, you can. It's just that it doesn't work very well long term. We don't tend to have the friends or the support that we get if we were more mature.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think that's a really good question you're bringing up. Before we move into the other parts of the restraint, why do we need to restrain ourselves?
SPEAKER_04Well, for one thing, I think you'll be happier. I mean, do any of us, you know, we those of us and most of you out there care about people. Do you want to have to live through something you deeply regret? Think, oh, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have said that. It helps you to not have to have those more painful moments where you have to try and repair.
SPEAKER_02I agree. You never regret um being more refined, I guess, or a more refined version of yourself. It's not like you're looking back and going, oh, I wish I had laughed louder at that party I was at. I wish I had spoken more. Maybe some of us do, those of us that might be a little shy, but we're not really talking about that. We're talking about restraining yourself from overly emotional reactions. And like you said, the motto of the physical restraint is just because you can act doesn't mean you should. I think that's a really good way to describe it.
SPEAKER_04It's a re it's a really good point. At the end of the day, when you've done something, do you look back and think, yeah, I handled that really well? I'm glad I reacted this way instead of, oh man, I shouldn't have said that.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. We want everyone out there to feel that way as much as possible because it feels wonderful. And like you said, you'll be happier and you'll be more likable, you'll have more friends, you'll have better relationships.
SPEAKER_04I think this is one thing that I know I have struggled with in my life. And so I think some of you have probably struggled with this too. What if you can say something or do something, should you?
SPEAKER_02I struggle with this too. I think I can't I don't know anyone that doesn't struggle with some parts of this. And maybe there's some that you're better at than others. Maybe you're a little bit better physically, but you're not as as good socially, or you're not as uh skilled with this emotionally. I think we all have those areas, and it's okay for you to struggle with this. That's why we're talking about it.
SPEAKER_04I think it should be upfront to say that you you will never probably perfect this in your lifetime, and that's okay. That you just keep keep working on it, and you'll get more and more mature and astute at it as time goes on. You'll find when you're 60, you're better at it than when you were 20.
SPEAKER_02Okay, the second one is social. This has to do with gossiping, verbal outbursts. We all know what those sound like. Um, sarcasm, online composure, which is such a big topic. I feel like we could do an entire podcast about online composure and respecting others' boundaries. And if there was a motto for this one, the motto would be not every moment needs your input.
SPEAKER_04I think that's very well stated, especially for online stuff. Because to me, the temptation there is you're kind of doing it behind a curtain. So it's easy. If you were facing somebody looking in their eyes, there it might be easier to restrain yourself than if nobody sees you. But you can still do damage, you can still do damage.
SPEAKER_02One of the hardest ones, I think, that I'm constantly struggling, like not struggling with, but I think is a challenge within the group of friends that I have, just the circle that I have, is gossip. Um, and I'm really proud of some of the times where that is kind of shut down. There's restraint there. But as ladies, I hate to say it, we kind of just naturally want to gossip a little bit. I don't think it's meant to come from a bad place. I think that gossiping can feel like it starts in a good place and then all of a sudden it starts to go in a more gossipy kind of place. And yeah, and that one's really tricky, especially if you're really genuinely just trying to learn about someone or share something about someone, and then it suddenly gets to this place that you maybe you aren't comfortable with and you don't want to go there. And that's why we say this is a lifelong struggle, a lifelong process. It's a it's a lifelong thing that you have to work on because that's so tough.
SPEAKER_04It is, and some things are a good to talk about, like if you hear something that you might be able to prevent something bad from happening by reporting it, right? Then that is not gossip. Gossip, I think, is talking about people in a negative way that makes one feel good to who's doing it. Well, the pointing out about sarcasm, sarcasm is such such a problem in I think probably every culture. And that's why in other parts of the book, like in girlishness, we say sarcasm. If we can try and eliminate that, right, that will that will help us. But sarcasm is so damaging and it hurts people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I think also when it comes to respecting others' boundaries, I know that one can be a little bit vague, but the part of the social part of that is really being self-aware of where things are going. Um, if you just and this this comes a little bit, this bleeds into the conversation skills, the other uh podcast that we will do in the future about um part of the ladylike behavior series. It's conversation skills, but respecting other people's boundaries when it comes to conversations is a really big one because before you know it, you might be talking about politics or religion, and suddenly everyone's uncomfortable and you're you're thinking, what happened?
SPEAKER_04There's a lot of tension when it comes to those things nowadays, more than in my lifetime that I ever remember. But I was thinking, have you ever been in a situation? I know I have, that's why I'm mentioning it, a situation where you said something, and let's uh put it under more verbal outbursts instead of gossip, to somebody that then you deeply regretted it because they of their reaction. I it happened to me with my mother-in-law when when we were first married, and she was we were staying with them for the summer, and she said something that really offended me. She tried to she tried to take over my mothering skills, at least that's how I perceived it. And I I let her have it. And then after that, I remember thinking, oh no, what have I done? And I I thought, I need to apologize to her because it was too much. I if I'd had self-restraint, it would have been so much better. And what I thought, okay, I've got to apologize to her. And I saw her out in her garden, just kind of she had a hoe and she was just scraping the ground with it, just looked really sad. And as I was walking, I thought, I will never do this again. It is not worth what that's how you learn, though.
SPEAKER_02I mean, you learn that way, but some people don't learn from it, and they they kind of become prideful about it, yeah, and they kind of resist that feeling of I should try to change, or I should try to take steps next time to avoid that because I I don't like hurting other people. Some people don't think that way, or rather.
SPEAKER_04Have you ever known of a situation or been in a situation where there was gossip involved and the person who's being gossiped about overheard it? That is that would be so humiliating. Uh just think, oh no, because you don't mean for them to hear you. Right. And sometimes if you get caught like that, it's enough to say, I can't stand that. I just for that to ever happen again. It's just, oh, you feel like such a low life when you're caught and then you realize the damage it can do.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think the more sensitive ladies out there do want to work on this and they are aware of it. And there are some ladies out there that want to work on ladylike behavior, but this part of it is a part that they maybe don't agree with. And that's fine. If you don't agree with some of these things, that's fine. But I think what we're trying to say is pointing out these tiny little details and how you feel afterwards is something it's worth looking at. It's worth looking into because if you're someone that's really trying to develop this in yourself, but you're like, well, I'm just blunt. You know, like I'm just a blunt, that's fine. You can be a blunt person. You don't have to change who you are. It's just refining who you are. You can still be blunt and have self-restraint.
SPEAKER_04You know, we all have a little bit different personalities, but the statement, the motto is not every moment needs your input still stands. Right, exactly. Because sometimes you think, okay, do they need to hear what I'm gonna say? Probably not. It's been overstated already. And then you can you can just just not just refrain, just don't do it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's probably this what some of these are a little harder for certain personalities than others. And I think what's great about this conversation that I really appreciate is that you have a different personality from me. So we can both kind of speak for at least two main personalities. You are a little bit more on the shy, reserved, sensitive side. I'm a little bit more on the stronger personality side. So we can both kind of speak from our experiences. And I think I love hearing what you struggle with, and and we can kind of exchange different things that we struggle with because everybody has something that they're struggling with.
SPEAKER_04Well, but the the motto is still fit for your personality. Exactly. Yeah, not every moment needs your input. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02I don't know why that makes us laugh.
SPEAKER_04Well, because sometimes you just you see something like, for example, online, you think, I have to say something here. I can't stand it. I can't stand it. And then you see 10 other people have said sort of the same thing, and then you think, I don't need to say something.
SPEAKER_02How many times do you jump to the comment section and you see like the first two or three comments of what you were gonna say? And you're like, Oh, this this person's an idiot. You think, oh, okay, I don't need to say anything. Okay, the third one is emotional. This one is by far the hardest one for me personally. This has to do with overall discipline of your feelings, oversharing, timing of what you share and how you share it, letting go of things such as grudges and many more things in under that umbrella. And the motto for the emotional category is feel it, but don't let it lead.
SPEAKER_04And that is another motto that fits for pretty well everybody. Everybody, yeah. Even on even no matter what your personality is. The reason we're we're bringing this up is uh when you can learn to show more self-restraint, you actually feel better. Exactly about yourself. That's why we're talking about it.
SPEAKER_02Well, and when when I think about emotional restraint, like talk about CrossFit for your brain. Like it's really tough for some of us, for some of us, it's not, but for me personally, because I have so much passion about things, and I tend to be very strong-willed, and I have so many strong opinions about things, I have a tendency and I've had to learn, and this is what I love so much about Fascinating Woman. It has taught me when and where and how often and how much. And I'm not perfect at it by any means, but I've really come a long way, and I'm just so grateful to be able to learn a lot of this because it does make you happier.
SPEAKER_04That's the ultimate goal, it makes you happier, and then you you have to apologize less, which is always very, very nice when you is it see. I haven't had to apologize for six months. I mean, that that would that sounds great.
SPEAKER_02Or like, you know, self-doubt. You know, sometimes with emotional restraint, you you may be strong in a moment and react, and all your feelings are out there for everyone to hear and everyone knows it. But then afterwards, I think you mentioned this earlier with the um with the physical one, you feel regret later and you think, oh, you know, well, how did that did I come off too strong? I don't really feel like I'm not sure if everyone was even listening to me or if I made an impact, or maybe I came off too strong. And that self-doubt can really be a terrible place to be in. Really, yeah, it really can. So now we're gonna move into self-restraint in your everyday life. I know you gave a couple of examples as we were talking, but I thought we could go through some really relatable examples of self-restraint in every day. The first one that I wanted to share was an emotional restraint example. And I thought this would be a helpful one to share because it's kind of like I feel like everyone experiences this every day. And this has to do with driving. I live in a very busy suburb in Chicago, of Chicago. That I just know where I'm living that traffic is really intense and it's stressful. You've driven where I live.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I I know, I can attest to it. It's people here, especially when you're driving kids to school because everybody's doing it. So there's always cars, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's a rush hour situation almost all the time, it seems, and people are very pushy when they're driving here, they're very aggressive, and it's something that I have had to adapt to living here, which is fine. But something that I encounter every day is people running red lights. Always really always running red lights. Um, because in the rush hour, in the heat of the moment of rush hour, some of these red lights are really the the the green lights, I should say, are short. And the long line of people wanting to turn, they maybe only three or four cars will get through this green light. It turns red and they just go anyway. So I'm telling you, every single morning I'm dealing with somebody running that light, and then I, as a result, can't turn because they're running it. What I think is a good example of self-restraint here is that it it is a moment of my mourning that I know is coming every day, and it drives me crazy, no pun intended. I mean, it really makes me feel crazy. So instead of what I think a lot of people do, which is honk, which doesn't work, by the way. I mean, it's it's not just like a polite honk, it's like a err, like a really long 10-second honk, you know, you know, flipping people off, swearing, all those things. But I've got my kids in the car, so I'm extra aware of myself. So what I tend to do is essentially nothing. I don't really do anything. Um, because here's the thing I've tried that, I've been down that road. You can honk, you can whatever you want to do. And I'm not saying honking is bad. And I have honked, but it doesn't do anything, it really doesn't work.
SPEAKER_04It's like saying, here's a way that you can let out your feelings, but it doesn't do anything for the situation.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And sometimes I will just do a little polite honk. Um, if it's bad, like if it's four cars, because sometimes it's that many cars running it. I'm like, really? And then I'll just like a little honk. But my son will always, always scold me and say, Why don't you uh roll down your window and yell at them? Why don't you honk like over and over? Like, I know that's what daddy would do.
SPEAKER_04Like, is that what daddy would do? I think so. Probably. No, I've never seen him do that.
SPEAKER_02But I think for me, and again, this is why this is relatable for every day, is it's I have let it go. And I know it's part of my morning. And I when it happens, I I inch out to let them know I'm coming because I don't think it's fair to say that you just sit back and let people take advantage of you. But really, what can you do? I'm not gonna crash into them because that would be insane.
SPEAKER_04It would also be a a crime.
SPEAKER_02And again, you what is the point of this here? It I'm not there's a whole I guess I could go to the village and and ask for a camera and be put on, but that's not the point. The point is is that we're talking about everyday examples of self-restraint. This is something I cannot really control other than myself. So what I tend to do is I just talk to my kids during that time. I bring up a conversation and we just talk about something else, and he doesn't notice, or at least I think he doesn't notice because he stopped scolding me. Um but that's an example of emotional because in my heart and in my mind, I am incredibly frustrated.
SPEAKER_04Well, and most people would be. And and do you ever think um crosses your mind how come there's never police here to go?
SPEAKER_02Every morning you think there'd be one policeman there. There's one. There never are. There never are. Honestly, I don't even know if they would do anything about it because it's three and four cars almost every few minutes, every cycle.
SPEAKER_04I think if police if one police car was sitting there, they would do it less. They just wouldn't do it. True, true.
SPEAKER_02But I think you know the the the this has actually a small thing that has changed my life because every morning I do not get I go into this knowing I am not going to have road rage this morning. I'm just not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it because it's pointless, and then I just get mad. And then what if it's like a kid that's learning to drive? And I have to say to myself, like, I gotta give some people grace on this, even though it's completely annoying and illegal. But it's like again, what can you do?
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Knowing when it's completely pointless, completely pointless, and giving yourself permission to not have road rage, exactly.
SPEAKER_02And and we can give examples of some where you actually can do something, but this is just one that I thought would be helpful for when you really can't do anything.
SPEAKER_04For me, I guess uh an example of where I have to show restraint is uh probably I don't tend to have trouble with road rage because I always feel sorry for people. Maybe they're going to the hospital. You're a lot more sensitive. I would yeah, that way. But but online, I sometimes do. If somebody pushes one of my buttons online, I've had to learn when to think, you know what, it's not gonna make any difference. Don't don't say anything. I can roll my eyes to myself and move on. Because sometimes it just all it does is hurts me, and I can't do anything. You know, we all know how it is online. There's all kinds of people, and some people are really rude. They'll be rude to us in Fascinat Womanhood, and what do we do about it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, someone the other day said a comment. They commented on one of our reels, and they said one of the secrets to yours and dad's 57-year marriage, they they said, is one of the secrets that you have false imprisonment of one of you? That wouldn't be a secret, that would just be imprisonment. I think it was supposed to be a joke, but it was so it was such a bad thing to say on such a beautiful reel. It was a reel of you and dad, and it was AI, and it was just like showing you from when you were younger, walking around. It was it was with classical music, and it was like someone said as the secret to your marriage that you imprison one, like one of you imprisons the other person. And it's like that is really insensitive. And I could have said something, you could have said something, but you just let it go.
SPEAKER_04You that's a that's if either of us had responded and say, No, that's not true, it wouldn't have done any good.
SPEAKER_02Well, I it's just some of them you want to engage in because they genuinely seem to want to learn, and some people just seem to just be insensitive.
SPEAKER_04It's easier for me. I don't know about you for sure, but it's easier for me when I don't know the person online to not feel as hurt. If it's somebody I know, it can hurt me. It's like when when you let someone into your life or your heart, they you also give them power to hurt you. But if you don't know them, you don't have to give them that power.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah. Another example we wanted to share, this was actually from the comment section of the YouTube video we did about self-restraint. She says, One time I told my friend, when I get really stressed or mad at my husband, I'll type him a text, but I won't send it. Then I wait till he comes home from work and I'll decide if it's even worth bringing up. She thought that was a good idea. It was a way for her to kind of release her stress and her anxiety, but then pause and don't press send. I thought that was a really good idea.
SPEAKER_04It is a good idea, yeah, because it gives you a chance to not be uh impulsive. Right. Because sometimes you might say something and then that's when you regret it, is when you think, oh no, I shouldn't have said that. I wish I could take it back. Exactly. Because you were impulsive. If you waited and then said it, you would already have decided it is worth it.
SPEAKER_02Most of the time you can pause. I think there's exceptions to that, but most of the time when you're upset, especially if it's an argument with your husband, like she's bringing up, most of the time you can wait. It doesn't usually have to be said right then and there. He hurts your feelings or he snaps at you, or whatever it is, you don't have to react to that right then and there. It doesn't mean that you're weak because you didn't say anything.
SPEAKER_04Or you can um you can pre-plan out something that you can say ahead of time if those things tend to happen. Sort of a restraint thing, like that's an interesting point of view. And then not say anything more till you've had a chance to think about it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, especially those of us that I mean, I know this is a big one for me that I'm constantly working on. If I get my feelings hurt, I have had to learn to just walk away. And that's the physical restraint right there, is just walking away because I don't want to say something that I will regret. And then you have to apologize, which is painful. Exactly. Yeah, and regretting things is just so I mean, regret is a terrible feeling. Yes, it's so heavy on your heart and on your shoulders, literally heavy to deal with sold. And if you can practice that pausing, and this is gonna start to get into our three tips. So we have three tips to practice better self-restraint, and this kind of bleeds into what we were just talking about. The first one is setting small and realistic goals. For example, if you are used to lashing verbally or letting kind of like blowing your top, you have a fuse that's very short. If you are used to doing that, you can set a realistic goal next time. I'm walking away. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Or I'm walking away, could be just going away from the computer. If it may not be a face-to-face, you know, and that may be too big.
SPEAKER_02If you are somebody that really struggles with outbursts, it may have to be smaller than that. It may have to be, I am going to allow myself to say something like you said, prepare it ahead of time. That's not nice, or you hurt my feelings, and then you walk away because it's too hard for you to just simply bottle it up and walk away.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You have to do what's right for you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and you can, like it's hinted with the example you gave above, you can you can you could write something, you can say something out loud. I'm really mad, and then just say, I'm gonna wait to actually talk to that person unless I tell I think about it. But you but in the meantime, you can still verbalize it to yourself, you can write it down, and yeah, you can allow yourself that.
SPEAKER_02You know, for those of you that have seen the movie Gone with the Wind, there's such a great statement that Scarlett O'Hara makes that reminds me of self-restraint. I can't remember why why she's saying it or what she's thinking about, but she says, I won't think about that today. I'm I'll think about it tomorrow. Something that was stressing, giving her a lot of stress.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it sounds like something more that men are good at than women. She had that, and that's good. She's I'm not gonna think about that because she couldn't do anything today.
SPEAKER_02Yes. I always think of that line in in my personal life when I'm kind of lost with something, or maybe I'm waiting for someone to resolve something, and I can't because I'm waiting. So I try to think, try to say to myself, I'm gonna think about this later. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, and it's you're giving yourself permission.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm giving myself permission to stop festering over this. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to think about it later. Although that's really easier said than done. Sometimes it is, yeah.
SPEAKER_04The second tip is replace your bad habits with better ones. The that this is a tip that has really helped me because sometimes it doesn't really work to just stop something. You have to do something instead. Exactly. Otherwise, there's kind of a feels like kind of a void. So replacing a bad habit with a better one it is actually helpful. Just saying you're gonna end something, it it leaves kind of a hole, an emotional hole.
SPEAKER_02I think another example of replacing a bad habit with a better one that that is understandable and relatable is um when it comes to dieting and exercising. It's really tough to just cut out sugar in your diet. But if you replace bad sugar for good sugar, this is like a classic example of switching out a donut for an apple. It doesn't feel the same by any means, but it's it's switching it in your mind. And you can do that with everyday little things in your life. You can do that with instead of swearing, I'm gonna say this, or instead of sarcasm, I'm gonna do this, instead of um oversharing or monopolizing a conversation, I'm actually gonna do this. You know, you should switch it instead of just saying, Oh, I'm not gonna do that anymore. That's really unrealistic.
SPEAKER_04If you can't replace it with anything, it's like talking about dieting. If you say, if I get too hungry, I can always allow myself a piece of fruit, or instead of saying you can't have anything for the rest of the whole day, that's really hard to overcome.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I remember one of the comments on our YouTube video about self-restraint was about eating, actually. She said one of the things that she struggled with the most in her life in regards to self-restraint was her eating. And she was an emotional eater. And it was really, it was really sweet and kind of sad this this comment. But it was actually very um, it was really helpful that she shared this story because she she watched our video and she said it helped her to be able to think about okay, when I'm upset, she said she would binge eat and just plop herself in front of the couch and binge eat. And there's a lot of people that do that, and it's emotional, ultimately, that is an emotional restraint. And she had to learn other things to do when she felt that urge to binge and just eat a bunch of junk food, and she had to replace it with something, and I don't know, I don't remember what she said she had to replace it with, but she she found something else, and she was just so grateful that she had listened to our video because she had never heard anyone talk about it in that way.
SPEAKER_04She just thought she needed to diet, or needed to just use massive willpower and just not exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, and then the third tip is beware of your emotional bottle and how full it is. Now, this has to do with your book, the chapter nine, which refers to the upstairs, downstairs. For those of you that have not read about that, it's in a nutshell basically talking about where you are in your mind, whether you're in a positive kind of growing state of mind or whether you're in kind of a negative, uh downward spiral kind of place in your mind. So when we're talking about the emotional bottle and how full it is, can you explain what that means?
SPEAKER_04Well, I think all of us feel it. We may not have words for it, but when, like, say you're going through a really tough time because of it can be any number of things. Um, it can be a death in the family, it can be stress at work, it can be anything, and you're aware of it, but you can't really just solve it today. It's something you're going through. Then being aware, there's some days you can handle it better than other days. And when you become aware of that, like you said, emotional bottle being full, you can recognize that you um how how much more important it is to have self-restraint because the chances of you regretting something on those days is high.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I really love the concept about how full your bottle is. I actually learned that concept. I think it's a really famous kind of common concept that people talk about a lot. But the first time I learned about it was when I was in my 20s, and I had gone to a therapist because I had had a baby and I needed help with postpartum depression. And she introduced that concept to me for the first time, and I had never heard it. I know it's really common, and a lot of people probably have heard about it, but I think what makes it especially interesting is when you frame it with the upstairs and downstairs. I think that that's the part that was always missing for me until you and dad uh talked about that in your book, um, and how, you know, you can kind of manage the bottle versus just stop filling the bottle. Like we talked about um in the in the previous tip. It's about knowing why your bottle is full and how to replace it and be proactive versus just letting it be full and then stopping.
SPEAKER_04Like, well, one of the to me to me, one of the things that helps there is being kind to yourself instead of mean to yourself, just saying, okay, my bottle's full. Uh I I'm not gonna be able to handle as much today and giving yourself grace to not have to maybe do as much. It's it's a it's a way of being kind as is your self-restraint is actually being kind to yourself, like right.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think it's about being self-aware too, knowing what's gonna fill your bottle. Like for me, I know that I'm pretty great with self-restraint until it comes to my kids. Yeah, that is where it's so hard for me, and I think it's hard. I think we're similar in this way. When it comes to your kids, you have this a lot of us, not I guess it's not everybody, but a lot of us have this instinct to um just explode uh with with compassion and protection. And it's just for a lot of us, it's a it's a tough place to replace it.
SPEAKER_04None of your neither of your kids are grown yet, but as a mother of seven, I can tell you it doesn't end. In fact, in some ways, it gets harder because you can protect them less when they're when they're grown up. Then you have to have the self-restraint of knowing when to not say anything because you're gonna be meddling. Uh you don't want to be a meddler, so well, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_02I think it's just about being aware of it. It's as simple as just being aware. For me, I was not aware of this. It sounds probably really silly and probably kind of dumb that I was not aware of this as a brand new mother that this was going to affect me. I suddenly turn into this really the opposite of self-restraint. I I turn into this person when it comes to protecting them and standing up for them and you know, helping them um with choices and things like that. But you can learn how to do this. But being aware that it is a button for you is that alone is a big step.
SPEAKER_04I think it's a button for a lot of fathers too. It isn't just women um with their children. And but um for me, I mean, I've got one daughter on the other side of the world in Australia. I can't do anything, almost nothing, about other than just worry about it. I don't worry every day, she isn't in trouble every day, but sometimes I worry about things with my kids that I know I can't do anything about.
SPEAKER_02Well, and your bottle is filling as you're worrying. You're worrying, and then the bottle is going up and up and up, and that's where I think what we're saying is is to try to be aware of it and do things that help you manage that, such as getting upstairs. And when we say getting upstairs, that's that mindset of positivity growing. For me personally, I have to be proactive. I've shared this on other podcasts and other videos. I have to be very proactive about exercise. That is something that helps me stay upstairs. And I think for you, something that helps you stay upstairs is doing self-care.
SPEAKER_04And you've shared a lot about that, like doing things for other people. Me. Um, like answering questions on fascinating womanhood, it helps me to feel like I'm serving. And things things that you're you're not paid for, you just are wanting to help. Yeah. So you do it.
SPEAKER_02You've said several times that something that helps you is reading a book or watching a TV show, like doing things for yourself that help you watching like something funny on TV that helps you to. I think we all have our different things. Some people do well with doing things creative. You brought up service, that's a good one. Anything that you can do to stay upstairs, you're not going to explode as often.
SPEAKER_04Well, yesterday I was having kind of a tough day emotionally, and I have a really wonderful neighbor across the street, and I don't like to kind of bother her. She says I'm never bothering her, but she was outside. So I went over and said hi, and we got talking and found out she has some uh digestive issues that she's I said, have you been doing? And we get talking about it. And I said, Well, I don't know if this is help, but uh gonna help, but I told her something I'd heard about online that helps with digestive issues that is not prescription medication, it's just natural. And she was, I don't, I said, I don't know if it's gonna help her, but I had some of this stuff, and I and I brought over some and gave it to her, and it helped me for the rest of the day to have been a service to somebody uh just because I cared about her. And so that's an example of when serving others always uh with no uh reward, no definite reward for ourselves in mind. It always helps us to stay upstairs. We love who we serve, and that's one of the reasons that you love your kids so much is you serve them all the time, right?
SPEAKER_02Well, and think about the days where you are downstairs, like let's say you just didn't sleep. We've had we've all had those.
SPEAKER_04I have a lot of those, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I still have those, you still have those. Yeah, I saw them. And then the next day, where is your self-restraint? I mean, I don't know about you, but it's just gone.
SPEAKER_04It's not, it's not, it's not, it's not there. And then sometimes you absolutely do not have time to take a nap. But there's times where you technically do, but you don't want to because you have so many things to get done. I'm learning on those days to give myself some grace and let myself have a half-hour nap, even if I don't have everything on my list done. If there are things that I have, you know, I have uh responsibilities and things I've committed to. But if I have some time, instead of powering through, sometimes I'll let myself have a nap, which is I don't like that because then I feel like I'm not getting everything done.
SPEAKER_02But then there's the flip side of that. I've heard of ladies say that they don't have a lot of motivation to get things done. And they are essentially in a downstairs frame of mind because they are not really progressing or accomplishing a lot because they're not motivated to do a lot. And I think that's also a tricky place to be in because you are you're still kind of downstairs. Downstairs means that you're not growing, you're kind of complacent and you're just you're in and in some senses you're sad or you're depressed, but in others, you're just kind of not really challenging yourself, and that means you're not growing. So if you're in that frame of mind, it might be difficult to have self-restraint over your emotions because there's not a lot of discipline going on, if that makes sense. It does, yeah. Okay, so just a couple of things to touch on about self-restraint, and these are questions that we'd received that I wanted to point out and highlight. What about when self-restraint backfires? Meaning when you didn't react enough and you were too quiet, because some of the ladies that follow us struggle with speaking up in the moment or they freeze. Yeah, yeah. What do you have to say about that?
SPEAKER_04Well, that's that's a that's a learning experience, and that's one of the reasons for this podcast is to what when you understand it, you you face it, you can do something about it. You can say, you know, I I wish in this situation I had said this or that, and you can pre plan if any if this time. Happens again, how I will respond, and then you can do it. If you, if you, if it depends on you having to react organically, not thinking advanced, it's going to be harder than if you can pre-plan, if you tend to freeze.
SPEAKER_02I think you can give yourself permission that if something, if you're in a situation and it is going too far and it is crossed a boundary for you, I think you have to give yourself permission to be assertive and to speak your mind, but it doesn't mean that you get to explode. It doesn't mean that you get to because let's just be honest, when we explode, we just embarrass ourselves, usually.
SPEAKER_04You know, I've watched um movies and series and stuff on on uh TV, and I've noticed that some of the characters, and of course, this is all scripted, where they'll say the perfect things in a conversation. I know, and then you're thinking, gosh, I'm not sure. I wish I could do that. Yeah, and and instead of exploding, they say something really wise or really witty, and and and they're all controlled. Well, of course, they're memorizing lines, but it's possible to do that kind of a thing in real life, not perfectly every time. Right. But but we can learn to respond. You can learn actually from things you watch, respond with um restraint. And you're not giving them everything that you feel, but you're giving them enough.
SPEAKER_02Fascinating womanhood gets this kind of reputation, I guess you could say, of really delicate flower kind of personality women. And I think that femininity doesn't mean that when your voice needs to be it needs to be present, that you can't do that because it's not feminine. You can absolutely speak up when it is needed of you, and or on behalf of someone else, speak up for what you believe in, what's right when things are happening, and you don't believe that that you believe that something unfortunate has taken place, something wrong is happening, someone is misbehaving, someone is not treating you well. That is not the time for you to be like, oh, I need to be quiet.
SPEAKER_04Well, there's a a scene from a movie. It's an older movie, some of you may have seen it, but it's the The Patriot with uh Mel Gibson, and he's a lot older now, so you can tell how old the movie is. But um, there's a scene in there where this young girl, um, what's his name? Heath Ledger, who's passed away, he comes into this church and he's wanting to get people to volunteer to help him um go to war with the red coats, and all he says, Who's with me? And all of the all of everyone just sits there. And this young woman stands up. She ends up being the love interest for Heath Ledger later. But she stands up and she's real feminine, but she says, I uh he's only asking you to do things that you've I've heard you time and again say that you believe in. And where where is your courage now? She didn't call them names or anything, but I think her response, her reaction was very um upfront. It wasn't sarcastic, but it was it was very confrontational. And and then she stood there and it was it was a it was a powerful moment, and then men started gradually standing up because they knew she was right, but she didn't humiliate them. She just she said, I've heard you rail time and again about freedom. Now's the time for you to actually act the way you believe. And she kind of gave them a boost of courage. So that kind of thing, I think, is is what you're talking about. You don't have to lose your femininity because you're you're speaking up or defending someone or something.
SPEAKER_02Right. No, that's a good example. I need to go back and watch that. I haven't seen that in so long, but I think this can be really tough. And and I have another example of of what this might look like in everyday. Um, I recently had to go to my son's school to talk to a teacher about a very difficult teacher who's being very difficult. And it's funny because all the teachers that work with my son, she's the only one that is being really difficult right now. And I had to sit down and I knew going into that that I was going to be having to practice a lot of self-restraint because she has been rather nasty with my son. And my husband, who is incredibly good at self-restraint, has said to me before we went into the meeting, he said, Let me do all the talking.
SPEAKER_04Well, he knows how you are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But um, but there was a moment where I had to say something, and I and I'm glad that I did. And I this is where I think you know that you succeeded with self-restraint, is when you say something and you look back and you have no regrets, and you're like, you know what? I'm proud of myself for saying that. I said to her, because she was putting up with bullying in the classroom right in front of her eyes. And in this is a fact, this is not like a he said, she said thing. She was putting up with it, and I said to her, in what world could you, as a teacher, think that that is acceptable in your classroom? And I did not, I did not raise my voice. I just looked at her and I I really did mean, I really did mean, and I could have said so many terrible things to her, and she was being so awful. Like, you know, you're just talking to somebody, you're like, How could you be so awful? And she she I kind of made her speechless, she kind of just changed the subject. But I think the point is that she knew what she had done, and she got caught, and her boss was there, you know, the dean was there. But I I think that's why I like to bring up these examples of every day because you can kind of say to yourself, Did I go too far or was that okay? You know what? That actually, I'm glad I said that. I wanted to say, I needed to say that.
SPEAKER_04You would have regretted it if you had yelled at her or called her a name.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And you know, my husband said some really powerful things to her, and so I felt really I felt like we walked away from that doing as much as we could. But I think that's an example of a time where you you don't need to be quiet. You can still say something, but just enough to get your point across and not scream and not yell and not accuse and all the kinds of things that I kind of felt like I wanted to do. You know, just you when the more you practice it, it will kind of become contagious. It will become contagious to people around you. Have you ever been around somebody that's terrible with self-restraint and then you suddenly catch yourself?
SPEAKER_04Kind of yeah, well, yeah, and and in your case, what you did, you can look back and and replay it in your mind and think that was really good. That helps you have the impetus and and strength of mind to do that again. It becomes less hard.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. That's a good point.
SPEAKER_04Because it was a good experience instead of oh, I shouldn't have done that or said that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, have you ever been to like a an event of some kind, whether it's a concert or maybe a sporting event, and you've got people all around you yelling and getting worked up, and it almost gives you a little bit of anxiety. I don't know about you, but for me, when I'm watching a sporting event or a concert or something, people are getting really loud. It can kind of make me nervous. Being self-restraint and the opposite of self-restraint is very contagious. Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_04Like you say at a concert, if everybody's dancing or dancing and yelling, yelling, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You can get contagious. But I think that's a good thing. You can when you think about it that way, you want to be the person that is contagious with your restraint, not your not the opposite, someone that's has no discipline.
SPEAKER_04Sometimes if someone has no discipline, you can think, oh my gosh, I don't want to look like that. I don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_02I don't want, I don't want to allow that energy to kind of push me into a place that I'm not comfortable being. Yeah, exactly. So since this is part of our ladylike behavior series, and one of them is going to be about self-discipline, can you explain how you think self-discipline is slightly different from self-restraint and why we're covering that separately?
SPEAKER_04It kind of they're kind of related, but they're not exactly the same. Self-discipline is is um is more about like disciplining yourself rather than giving yourself permission to act or not act. And self-discipline is more about yourself than it is particularly about other people. Right. Uh self-discipline might be, you might use that when you're talking about dieting, for example. It doesn't necessarily affect another person or yourself, whereas restraint is often about other people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that when we get into the discipl the self-discipline podcast, we will dive into a little bit more about accomplishing things and work ethic and not as much just this. I think today we talked a lot about kind of discipline inside of us and with our emotions, whereas this can be more about discipline within habits and how you live your life and how you approach things. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So that'll be more about the self rather than your relationships.
SPEAKER_02That'll be a good one. And we can put maybe that one next if you feel like that's a good one to do next. Sounds good. All right. Well, thank you so much for all of your valuable advice and this great day. For those of you who haven't read Dixie's book, please visit our website, fascinatingwomanhood.com, or you can also find us on Amazon. You'll want to read her book to learn so much more about femininity and developing strong relationships in your life. And if this episode resonated with you, please feel free to share it with a friend. We just started our podcast and we're trying to grow, so we appreciate your support. And we're here every week, so send us a message. We love getting fan mail. We actually just got one yesterday, and I will read it because we promised we would read all of the fan mail we get. Hi, Dixie and Cherry. Thanks so much for this wonderful podcast. I really love this conversation and it gave a lot of personal details. It was really helpful. I love the interaction between you two ladies and how honest and vulnerable you are in sharing your stories. Uh, Cherry, that was interesting in how you shared about your early marriage. Oh, so this was from our first podcast, the very first one we did. How fascinating womanhood impacted our lives. Um, and your early marriage and also your relation to fascinating womanhood when you were a child, andor you know, growing up, I think she was doing voice to text. It's got a little bit of a breaking up and how you were growing up and how you saw it. It was very inspiring and enlightening. And Dixie, you just always are so wonderful, and there's such care and tenderness in your voice and commitment to helping other women live fascinating womanhood. You're the parent, and you're doing a phenomenal job. Thank you for all your work, all your work, ladies. That's really sweet. That's really sweet. Send us Padmail, we love hearing from it. We'll try to read it at the end of every podcast. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time. See you later. Bye. Bye.