The Guilt of slowing Down (and Why it’s a Lie)

You sat down for ten minutes and immediately felt guilty about it.

Sound familiar?

We have been so conditioned to tie our worth to our output — to how much we produce, how much we give, how hard we grind — that rest has started to feel like failure. Like laziness. Like falling behind.

But in this episode, Key Glover is calling that feeling exactly what it is: a lie.

We're talking about where the guilt of slowing down really comes from, why it has such a grip on so many women — especially Black women, mothers, and entrepreneurs — and what God actually says about rest. Spoiler alert: it doesn't sound like "grind harder."

This episode includes the most restorative breathwork practice of the series, the Week 3 affirmation spoken aloud, and an honest conversation anchored in Matthew 11:28.

You are allowed to stop. You are allowed to breathe. And you are allowed to just be.

📓 This week's journal prompts:
· Where in your life are you running on empty right now?
· What does rest actually look like for YOU?

🎙️ New episodes every Tuesday. Follow @bigeyedgirlpodcast on Instagram for weekly affirmations and journal prompts.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello, beautiful. Take a breath. You're exactly where you need to be. Welcome to the Big Eye Girl Podcast, a space for real conversations, honest reflection, and learning how to see life through a bigger, wider lens. I'm so glad you're here. Whether you press play because you're searching for clarity, growth, or just a moment to breathe and feel seen, you're in the right place. And around here, we talk about things that shape us: the challenges, the shifts, the lessons, and the quiet moments in between that often matter the most. This is a space where you don't have to have it all figured out. You just have to be open. So wherever you are right now, driving, walking, or just sitting with your thoughts, settle in. Take what you need from this conversation and allow yourself to see things a little differently today. Let's get into it. The woman who feels guilty the moment she sits down. The woman who has been running so long she forgot what stillness even feels like. I see you. I was you, and sometimes I struggle with what I'm about to say to you. And today we're going to talk about rest. That's right. R-E-S-T. Capital to R E S T. Not as a reward you earn, but a gift God already gave you. See the scripture says Matthew in Matthew 11, 28, come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and will and I will give you rest. This is rest breath. This will be when you feel this could this will be a guide for when you feel so restless, when you're wanting to usher yourself into rest, and your anxiety or nervous system doesn't want you to access it. So before we go anywhere, I need you just to stop. If you're driving, don't do that. But if you can, just stop. Put one hand on your chest right where your heart is. Feel your own heartbeat for a moment. Now close your eyes if it's safe to do so. Breathe in slowly through your nostrils. All the way in. Hold it gently at the top. Then breathe out slowly through your mouth. As if you're emptying a bottle. Imagine your body as a bottle that you're emptying to the last drip. The last piece of air goes out your mouth. Let every muscle in your face, your shoulders, your jaw just release. So if you got your teeth clenched together, release it. Again, let's go. One more time. And through the nose slowly. Hold it. Now gently let it go. Make sure you let it all the way out. You're allowed to slow down. You're allowed to stop. Let's stay here for just one more breath together. Slowly. Hold it. Gently let it out. And these moments of restorative breath work, which are my favorite to facilitate. Allow yourself to do this as often as you see possible. To restore yourself, to calm your nervous system, to take you from the uh sympatic, sympathetic system to your parasympathetic, from your fight or flight to your calm. Allowing yourself to just reset so that it can initiate your body to rest. You'll find yourself when you inhale slowly and you hold it at the top. You can count, you can do a count of four to eight, sometimes four to ten, and releasing it out slowly throughout through the mouth. Not a rush to let it out. And doing it in a sequence of three. This will help restore your breath, bring some calm to the nervous system, and initiate rest. Okay? Hope you enjoy that idea. This is an affirmation that I want to speak to you. Rest is not a reward I have to earn. Rest is not a reward I have to earn. It is a gift God gave me. I release the guilt of slowing down. Stillness is where He restores me, and I choose to receive it. Y'all, it's been so many seasons that I've been running on empty. And I always justified it with I gotta get the work done. This is an opportunity I can't miss. I won't ever be able to get it again. God gave it to me, so I have to do it. And that one right there, that last one, God gave it to me, so I have to be a good steward over it. Being a good steward over it does not mean run yourself into the ground. Pouring out and pouring out and pouring out and saying, Well, God gave it to me, I gotta do it, does not that does not align with the will of God. He ain't say uh pour from an empty cup cup. Your cup needs to be full for you to pour. They need to really begin your overflow. You gotta stay full. And then when you feel yourself depleted, exhausted, then exhaustion turns into frustration because you're just sleepy, you just need a nap. You like a two-year-old. You know, them two-year-olds get tired, they get to run around, they'll start running in circles right in front of you and just fall, and then they'll crack up laughing. But it's really because they sleep and they don't want to, they see what's going on, especially if it's people around. Oh, they want to be in the mix, and we're feeding off each other's energy, especially if it's movement and action. It's like, oh I gotta keep going. Or you're on that social media scroll, and you see people actively posting and their accomplishments and what they're in the process of doing, and where they're showing up at it, what what event, what brunch spot, what hangout spot, um what engagement they were involved in, what they facilitated. You're seeing all the action, and that's having you think that you're missing out, that I gotta keep going. Right? Wrong when I had got back to Georgia. Um, I remember on my way back, I had just I was still, you know, recovering from healing from my surgery. And so I didn't do a lot. I wasn't doing a lot. How I did pray and I asked God, you know, God direct me on what I'm supposed to be doing, where I'm supposed to be going, what shop I'm supposed to be in, what do you want me to do? I was asking, you know, strategic things, but I found myself in a place of where I was taking naps during the day. My son, he it was summertime, so I was doing things with him, and I was like, yo, I'm just sleeping. I I felt lazy. Like I felt lazy, and I'm like, I'm supposed to be doing something, I gotta be doing something. And I had to kind of sit back and be reminded. I think it was my mom that reminded me, she said, sweetheart, you just had one of the most tumultuous years, year, probably in your life. And the, you know, outside of having my son in that season, that was another one. Um, but I did. I was the season before, the year before, the season before, I was running hard. I was working at the shop, I was uh facilitating yoga classes, I was um facilitating yoga classes with my ex. I was at another shot because I was trying to get to the money. Because we needed to, we needed the money at the time. We needed, we did, we did, and that's what that's what I believe we needed. I'm gonna go back because y'all the thing about me, in me sharing on this podcast with you, you all, I'm gonna talk in spaces where that are real time, real, like happening right now. And I'm gonna also be very honest with myself as I recap and I go back and I hit I push rewind on my life because as I'm talking, God reveals more to me as I talk, and I'm grateful for that. Oh, I'm so grateful for that right there. However, coming back, go back to the story I was saying, I'm just taking a lot of naps, and I feel like I'm exhausted. I'm like, why am I exhausted? My mom was like, first of all, you had a strained year. Second, you had a major surgery. Now, mind you, as soon as I was clear from my surgery, y'all, I was working. I mean, back in the shop, now I had my girdle thing on because I had a um a hysterectomy, and it was successful, but your core area, the woman's core area is so fragile, and though my my body went through whenever you open up the body, anybody that's in the medical field or has has some knowledge of or has experienced a surgery where your body was open up for hours. Um, my surgery was supposed to be, I think two to three hours ended up being five. And I kept moving in my mind. I I was obedient, I waited all the things. Then I has suffered from a lot of things came up. My B12 was extremely low, my iron was extremely low, I ended up having to have an iron transfusion. So my body was trying to, it was trying to restore itself, and it was trying to replenish and heal and all the things, and that's the body. Now my emotions, I think, I believe I was just suppressing them. My spiritual man was just like, I was trying to hear God, but I was like, I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go. That was my mindset, right? That when I got here finally, the level of rest, the level of sleep. I said, Well, my mom's like, I'm just taking a nap. I gotta take a nap, I gotta take another nap, I gotta take another nap. And some people say, Well, is she depressed? And I'm like, No, I wasn't, and I was hoping that I wasn't like, am I depressed? Like, something wrong, and that's the first thing you would go to is something wrong. No, girl, you tired. Your body is exhausted. You want you running on, you you are empty. God wants you to, He wants you to sit in His arms and just lay there, like a baby in their daddy's arms, just lay there and go to sleep and get restored. And I allow myself to do that for a little bit, but then I just I end up getting um employed at a cosmetology school and as a cosmetology instructor, and I'm excited, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going, and the hours were long, and it started to catch up with me. And I was going so much that when my sister passed, I remember um when I found out she passed, I I think I I was already off work, but I ended up going to work. And I remember my one of my um managers, she looked at us, she was like, she said, Are you sure you're supposed to be here? I was like, Yeah, I gotta keep going. We have to tell ourselves that I just gotta keep going. It's gonna, you know, it's gonna me being busy just help me with my mind, you know, help me, you know, process stuff, help me. Does it though? Does it really help us process? Keep going, does it help us process the emotion of losing someone or losing something? Or I gotta work, I gotta work because I gotta make sure that I'm I'm being a good parent because I gotta be able to provide for them. Because I got in that when I was at the school, it was beneficial, it was some good moments in it, it was not all bad, but I got to a point that I had to end up taking the L away because I was exhausted, I was burnt out because it was a lot of things that I was not acknowledging, but I was thinking that out of my effort of striving that I was going to get the rest eventually, that my off day will be allocated to my day of rest when my off days have been had become uh at-home domestic things to do, because again, talking to the single moms out here, or the single parents out here, or the single person, guess what? It's on you, or the person that's rediscovering themselves, since I'm talking to all of us because it's to a point like okay, well, I don't have no ones that I'm partnering with right now in my life that I can delegate the responsibilities of the things that's happened, okay. Well, everything will have to be done in one day. That's what schedules and structures do come from, that's where they exist, that's where they're implemented. When I took the LOA, y'all, I remember my managers asking me, like, can is something I say, yo, first of all, the schedule that y'all have at this campus is unsustainable. It is not a good balance of wellness of beauty, that it's just a front. Second, I am not acknowledging that my body is screaming to me, that my spirit is depleting, that my spirit is saying, go sit down somewhere that God is whispering to me, but because of my busyness, I can't hear him. Because I'm not resting. I haven't rested long enough. It was causing me to be irritated when my son asked me stuff. When I got home, I was so exhausted. And my son's my son began to say to me, Mommy, you tired? I'm sorry, I know you're tired. That became the response when he he seen me respond to him in frustration. Mommy, are you tired? What's wrong? I got a business that I'm functioning part-time, and I'm I'm torn between the two. But then when I have my moments of rest and feeling that Holy Spirit is speaking to me, and then he's requiring something of me, and I'm just like, oh God, something else on my plate. We start to think that what God is telling us to do becomes an option to the business and everything else. Parenting, ourselves, all that. So I took the L away. And immediately after a good night's rest, I dropped my son off to school and I had to date him myself. I said, God, what do we do? I went to straight to the word. I started feeding myself. And God started speaking to me in my stillness, in my quietness, of me stilling away, me making some time for him and I to commune. As a black woman, our culture has all always told us we had to grind, we had to do it. The black woman's gonna make it happen. You always gonna make a way out of no way. I'm a boss. Grind culture. And I'm a strong black woman. We strong black women. Strong black women, you know that's why that's what happens when you're with a strong black woman. And during the LOA A lot of things transpired in that season for me. Um I was reminded of some things that I had put on the back burner that God had told me to put on the front burner. I put those things back in their rightful position. I began to align myself back with the will of God for my life. Then it required me to make some faith moves because a lot of us are being frustrated with God and saying that I'm striving, I'm striving, God, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm doing everything you said to do. I'm not not I'm not doing everything you said do, I'm doing all these things, Lord. But what is the one thing by faith that God has said you told you to do that you're not doing our currency in the kingdom as kingdom children? Our currency is not money, tangible money. Yes, money does have its space here in the earth around, but in the kingdom, and if we are king, us being not if us being kingdom children is a currency that activates that we use in the kingdom that activates things being moved on our behalf. That's what grace paid for in faith. Faith is the substance of things, hope for the evidence of things not seen. I started to see where my frustrations was really lying. My frustrations were lying, not just in my hustle and bustle and my striving mentality. It was it was coming from a spiritual frustration that he God has been saying, do this over here on the right, and you keep wanting to do the stuff on the left because that makes sense. That adds up, you can see it, you can see the the full totality of it, but over in faith, you can't really see it, you believe it. It's something that you see with your spiritual eye, and people are gonna think you're crazy, and really can you risk it? And you are you a single mom, and you don't know how to really activate all that. And again, do I have to do I trust it again, God? Well, now I have a child. How do I trust it again? And God's saying, Yeah, because in that where faith is, is where I am, you're aligned with me, and rest is there too. But when we're striving, grinding, being upholding this banner of a strong black woman or strong black, strong black woman, or strong woman, period. You're up holding, you're up upholding, we are upholding a culture that is not sustained by God, it's sustained by us, and that ends in burn-out culture. Then we have this narrative, soft life, and I used to talk about soft life. Oh, soft life, what they know about that, they was on to something, but I'm gonna take it a little farther. They were on to what they call in Matthew 11 and 28. I'm gonna have to go to my my Bible so that I can read it from the Bible that I study because I like it in this version, bear with me, y'all. That with the soft life that in culture is like, you know, oh, everybody take my you know, my man take care of me, and this is my I got my business to take care of me. I just I'm I'm vacationing, I'm taking trips. Um, I'm in the spa, I'm at the sauna, you know, I'm at the yoga retreats, I'm you know, chilling with my girls, and I'm at brunch all day. That is what's portrayed in the culture as soft life, but really soft life is this, Matthew 11, 28. I believe this is my interpretation of it. Based on the Bible, come to me, all who are weary and heavenly burdened by religious rituals that provide no peace. And I will give you rest, refreshing your souls with salvation. What does that look like? How do I access that key? Sit your butt down, go so sit up, sit your butt down somewhere, go take a nap, go take a good old nap into that body. Wake up if you can, sis. Go find someone you got kids. Well, I can't do that, I got my kids. Take some time off. Take you a day of breath, take a day of, take a day off. Just take a day off. Rest before you lay yourself down to rest, to go to sleep physically. Rest. Ask God, what am I to do, God? What is that you want me to do to help me get out of, unlearn, help me to unlearn this behavior, this lifestyle that I have been influenced by, that I have adopted, that I I grew up in. See, because some of us, most of us, grew up in this culture. We gotta ground, we gotta get a job, I gotta make it for myself, I gotta do what I gotta do. You'll know where I come from. I come from this, I came from nothing, I came from poverty. Mom, my mama never had none. My family never had none. We were poor, it was this. I gotta do it like this, okay? But now that you have achieved the things that your family was victim to, that you're no longer a victim to, why are you still grinding like that? Why is it taking you to get sick? You get high blood pressure, uh hype uh diabetes, thyroid problems, any type of issue. It can be uh psoriasis, eczema, things, skin conditions. People don't understand, like certain skin, certain, all of them, most of them, are a representation. They they represent your autoimmune system being in fight or flight. I'm a hair loss specialist, just telling you what I know. Your diet and your stress level can cause your little skin to break out. Because we're eating on the go, and we ain't grabbing nothing healthy. Because some of our excuses, I don't have time to cook that, baby. Y'all, I'm just telling y'all something that I'm just all in my book, I'm all in my closet right now. This might not be your closet, this might just be key closet, and it's okay. If it's just key closet, it's all right. I'm being obedient to the Spirit of God for my life right now. I'm not playing with it, I'm coming for everything that the kingdom said that I have authority for. And yes, I'm and I still struggle from time to time, but I say, okay, God, I am struggling right now. Show me your word. Why is that why am I doing this and help me? And I'm about to go do it anyhow. And on the way, guess what? God meets me, and I'm believing if he can do it for me, if he can meet me as I'm going by faith, he can meet you as you go by faith too. As long as you have sought him and you got his direction and you got his okay to go. Because it looks different, sis. I know for sure it looks different. I've done it both ways. Oh, I've done it both ways so many times. So many times I can't count that I'm choosing in this season and going for and continue going, that I'm only gonna be doing it his way because me doing it my way has cost me so much that now I'm in a place where I can only trust God to restore that was which was lost. So when I took after I took the LOA, it it restored me. God refreshed me. He was giving me rest, even to the point that I was doing my hair, my mom's hair one day. And she said, You look so much lighter. I said, Yeah. I'm not performing out of my own will. I'm not trying to uphold this thing, this standard no more. It put me, it put me back into the position that I I hold as a child of the king. And reminding me of what I have is enough. I don't have to keep looking at social media and wanting that next bag and wanting this and wanting that trip and wanting this. God, what do you want for me? That's what I want to go do. That's what I want. Can I have that? Cause when you're in burnout and you're asking God for rest. You're in burnout and you're not even realize. Let me say this differently. You're in burnout, you're not even realize you need rest. Like you need to sit down somewhere. Come to me. First, God is that's a command right there. God saying, Come to him to get it, to get the rest. You we first, that's an action. First, you got to come to him. I mean you gotta stop what you're doing and come to him. Not come to him while you're doing what you're doing, stop what you're doing, come to him. I had to stop getting up and going to that job to sit in my apartment and come to God in my space. Holy Spirit, show me what is going on, what I'm supposed to be doing. Because that burnout has you like running, running, running, striving, striving, striving, grinding, grinding, grinding, trying to uphold all these for this facade. And not you not understanding. We in that moment, a lot of us don't understand as we're striving, we're going, we're going, we're grinding, we're going. I gotta do that, I gotta go. You don't understand that the enemy is slowly taking something away from you. That's your strength, your rest. He's stealing your rest from you. Now, when you surrender, when we surrender it all to God, when we give it all, when we rest, we become, it looks like in the morning, this is how I believe, because this is how God's showing me. In the morning, when I rise, I say, okay, God, what are we doing today? That's coming to him. How does the day going, God? I know my general, I know how I want to do things. I know I will probably want to do X, Y, Z, or someone may call me with something that seemed more exciting than what God has said we were supposed to do. Now, when I surrender to what God reveals to me that we're to do for the day, it's rest in that space. It could still be, for instance, I'm a single mom, I'll give an example. I'll wake up in the morning, I know, okay, I have days out I'm in a salon working, I have days, and then when Noah's in school, I know that I have to take him to school and get him ready, pack lunches, all the things. But then I have a lot of time to do some things. I could, the days I'm not in the shop, I can do whatever I want to do. But if God has a plan for that day and structure out my weeks, I'm more, I should be more inclined in doing it his way, even though it is some work involved. It's still rest in the work, meaning I'm not depleted, I'm not exhausted, I'm not, oh my God, da da da. Like it is a certain fortitude that you haven't that is a resembles rest in the natural form. Not rest so much as going to literally take a nap, sleep, but rest that I am in the will of God, I'm in purpose, I am doing something fulfilling to my body, soul, and my spirit, and God has access to me to use me in his glory for his delight. And he said that he would, if I'm weary or heavenly burden, that he would provide me, he would give me rest. Even if I'm in it and I feel like I'm starting to be feel a certain, I'm getting heavy or whatever, it starts the work seems a little um strenuous. You may remind it, God's gonna give us rest in it, though. And then once those things are done, guess what? God said rest, it's done. I remember in college, um, one of my professors, she gave us this book. It is called Pilling Back the Bananas, and um in this book, it said that most humans, and it was it was an entrepreneurship class, so most entrepreneurs or even humans, but specifically talking about the entrepreneur, want to do like they'll have a list of 10 things. He said, as humans, we can sit, he said honestly, we can only successfully do three in a day. Y'all, when I read this book, mind you, I was not a parent, I was single. And when I did that, I said, when I read the book, I said, Who is this man? What privileged lifestyle he come from? Nobody got it like him. That was those those were the words that were coming out of my mouth and in my thinking. Because sometimes when we hear people say these things and they're coming from a space, we assume that they come from privilege, that they have all this access to means that we don't have. We are already subconscious, have put ourselves in a lower position than we are as children of God. Yes, you do have access to it. You're just not exercising, you're not willing to learn how to exercise it because your butt won't go over there and sit down and let God tell you what to do. I'm gonna say what I said, how I said it, why I say it like that. Because, girl, that's how God be saying it to me. Because since I want us to not feel guilty, I don't want us to feel guilty for resting. I don't want us to feel guilty for going to get ice cream with our kids when we could probably be doing something clerical. I don't want us to feel guilty that when our children are on summer breaks, spring break, winter breaks, that we break with them. Y'all got tired of seeing people of certain um ethnicities doing things with their families on breaks, and us as black people, we still strive trying to go to work and our kids at home by themselves all day. Make that make that make sense. How are they doing that? Well, they know that we don't know. I digress from that. Stop feeling guilty. Single mama, stop feeling guilty for taking some time off of yourself to go to the movies by yourself, to go get a manicure, a pedicure by yourself, to take lunch by yourself, to have dinner by yourself, to go on that trip by yourself, to take a nap. Don't feel guilty. What rest actually looks like practical and personal. I'm I'm gonna break them down. I got three for I got three of them for you, okay? Just three. Rest is not laziness, okay? I don't want y'all to think that. Uh-uh. So uh obviously y'all don't think that from anything. I have just said I know you don't, but some people do. Some people think that if you rest, you sleep and they're like oh, you lazy, what you got? You didn't you how long or you may have come up in the household where I hear my father just say, He was sleeping all day. I've been working all day. I so okay. I had moments when I work all day too. So when you work, I gotta work. Are you mad that you came home because you've been working all day? You mad, you little jealous that I'm I'm laying down. Don't let nobody guilt you into. I say that to don't let nobody guilt you into resting because they're working in that time. Don't let nobody do that to you. Because that's a pattern in most black people's family. I can't speak for no other race because I ain't no other race. I'm black. That we were raised in environments like that, in households like that, that our parents or whoever our guardian was come home, and if you resting or some you laying down, you lazy, you this, you that, and they because they're working, and I'm only saying this if you are working, okay, all right, because some of them y'all do be lazy, okay. But rest is not lazy. God rested on the seventh day. If rest was part of creation's design, it was part of yours too. I swear. So I did not, when I was doing my scripts, y'all, my pastor currently is talking about this. He just he just talked about this, and it's something how I love how God is omnipresent, all-knowing, all things, right? That when you're in alignment with him, his word of confirmation comes. You can you kind of see it more consistent, you see it consistently. That's how I have seen it. I have witnessed it in my life with God. All right, I did not create these script, I create these scripts. Last month. I don't know when my pastor created. He probably been at his for years, I'm sure. I'm just saying how it's just aligning. So when I heard him saying it, I was like, oh my God. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you for confirming me. Thank you for reminding me. Thank you for letting me know that I'm on the path that you have for my life. I'm not trying to mimic nobody. I'm doing me, man. I'm doing authentically me. And I'm loving it. Okay. So six days. If you got five days at work, work though five days, bro. Sit down. Find you a Sabbath. I'm from Detroit originally. A lot of y'all, a lot of listeners, y'all know that already. We have a very large Jewish community and um Arab community. But I've always admired these communities, especially the Jewish, because you know they walk a lot. And I admire that. They're walking or riding bikes. They're not using like um cars. And so uh you know, on I think it's Saturday, they they're definitely walking. They're not, this is the day, they're um Shabbat. And where they don't, they're they're a family, they are eating together, all the things they have, they're breaking, they're just resting. I admire that culture. Because collectively say we're not working today. We're called to that culture. We're called to that, y'all. Uh y'all do know Jesus was a Jew. Okay. Digress. Um I digressing. Yep, I am. Not going to get into that. But we call it to rest. Your Sabbath may not be Saturday, it may not be Sunday. I don't know what day it's gonna be. But whatever day you rest, just rest. Find a day that you really don't do nothing, that you fin you spend some time with family, you spend some time with your kids, you spend some time with yourself if you're single, spend some time with extended family, just rest. Spend some time with the Lord because he wants to spend some time with you always. Next, define your rest. Rest doesn't look like the same for every woman, it don't walk through what your restorative days looks like, smells, and feels make it personal and specific. Like, what do you want that day to look like for you when you're resting today? You may say, okay, well, I'm gonna do this. It may be Sunday. No, I'm gonna go to church, I'm going to go get me something good to eat, I'm gonna come home, I'm gonna just chill out. I may take a nap, or I may, it's summertime, let me go walk the belt line if you're here in Georgia. Let me go to the park, make me a picnic, read me a good book, go to the coffee shop, read me a book, or people watch, or just sit there, or go bike riding, or go hiking, or just sit down. You got a home, you got an apartment, you got a balcony, got an area where you can sit and just chill. What you doing? Around my balcony with my my centronella candle on, got a good book, let me some lemonade and just chilling here and just taking it all in. That's defining your rest. Protect your Sabbath, Jesus. I love you. What and you got to, you got to. I was facilitating a class, and this one young lady, she's so sweet, all of them are so sweet, but that's like she was like, she asked me specifically. She said, How do you protect your boundaries, Keith? I said, Okay, guys, she asked me. Boundaries are important. I'm doing this today. I gotta do this today. I'm going to do this if I can fit this in. If I can't, sorry, I can't do that. I gotta go do this. Do X, Y, Z, X, Y, and Z. And if y'all want my son, take my son, but I gotta go do a I gotta go do this. Sometime I can't be in all the places. Sometime I can't, I gotta miss the the events or the celebrations, or I have to because I'm building something. God and I are building something that's bigger than just popping up to every event in every showcase. So, what boundaries have you put in place or do you need to put in place? Protect your rest, the do not disturb button is for a reason. Some people be like, You put your phone, do not just start, yeah. Yes, ma'am. 10 o'clock, you is important, you're gonna have to call a couple more times for that phone to let you through. Unless you is my mama or my son. Nope. My son lives with me. It does cost you to set and set the boundaries. It cost me. Some people like, oh she's funny acting, oh she this. Or some people began who respected it. They knew, like, oh, you can't call her at any time. And then some people try to mock you, like, oh, you answer your phone, or oh, it's oh it's not, it's not after your time, huh? And people that do that will let me know, like, oh, you you don't know how to you don't have boundaries. Or you're trying to knock me off my either way, they're gonna be here. When I set those boundaries, it gave back to me time for me. Time for me to see. It gave me my it gave me rest. Because remember early in this episode, I said when we're busy, distracted, doing all the things that we don't realize that our rest is being that's what's it's being taken from us. That's what we we I believe in my interpretation, that's why we be we begin to feel so heavy and burdened. Cause we out here just doing everything, you know. We had some some of y'all, I used to be this person years ago. Oh, god, years ago. I gotta be there for everybody. What girl? Oh, okay. Well, I gotta do it because they just don't have nobody else. That's what you think. But when I have learned how to put boundaries up, y'all, and I've learned to come to God about certain about everything, not certain things. Because I'm gonna stop saying certain things. I come to God, I come to God about everything, especially big things that I think that I I have uh a hold on, and I know good dang on what I don't. You can't be everything, everybody. How you how you know they don't have nobody? Because they told me, girl, no, they just like you in which you give, and it's distracting you from probably your rest, or you sitting on the backside and praying for them versus putting your hand to it, because prayer works, pray for the right people, the people God put in place who have been fully equipped to do the work in that area. I had to learn it the hard way, because it's people that's in place, it's people God want to use in certain situations and not you, because it's something he wants to do in their lives pertaining to that circumstance where he gets the glory, they see him manifest it in their lives for them, not for you. When we're busy putting our hands to everything and not resting, we're trying to say we God. Devil got you tripped up. Well, you can do everything God does not, yeah. On the seventh day, he rested. That's what I'm doing. I know what I'm saying may sound easy. I know it ain't easy. I know it ain't. I ain't gonna lie about that. I know it's not, but it's worth it. Don't feel guilty about you going to rest. Don't feel guilty about taking a nap. Don't feel guilty when not going to hang out with your friends, your family, your bestie, or having to show up for everything. Don't feel guilty. If you can't do it, you can't. Don't feel guilty for letting an assignment go that has been passed due. I'm going to give you some prompts. And again, the prompts are posted every Wednesday on my social media, Instagram and Facebook at the Big Eye Girl Podcast. Follow me, share, like them, like, and comment. Y'all, I need all the comments. I like all the comments. I do read them, I do respond to them. You're getting responses from me, not a I A A I A AI robot. It's me talking, it's me reposting. So I would love for your comments and all the things and DMs. If you want to DM me, tell me what episode out of this podcast has really touched you and why. Really trying to gauge what the listeners are liking, what you are, what you would say you needed. And again, prayerful and praying that everything hits the place that needs to hit, that the Holy Spirit reveals to you what is what you need in your life at this time. Also, um, Mondays are my affirm, the affirm me Monday affirmations are posted every Monday in these prompts. The journal prompts are new every week, and they're for you. I use these prompts as well, so this is not something I'm just dishing out to you all. The affirmations I write down as well for myself. So I'm using these things for it's it's it's not me just giving. Oh, I'm filling my cup, y'all. I'm resting. Oh, I'm resting, and where I'm not, I'm gonna say I'm not, I'm gonna say, but the prompt this week, and I want to give you an assignment and the permission to just go full speed into it, okay? The prompt is where in your life are you running on empty right now? And what does your personal version of rest actually look like? So here's some homework. So I just about to give you an assignment and some permission, okay? Before this week is over, I want you to give yourself one hour, just one, that is fully, completely yours. No kids, no clients, no phone, just you. You're worthy of it. Please remember that. Please know that. One hour? Maybe you have done one hour scrolling on TikTok. I know you have. So give you one, give yourself one hour that's fully, completely yours. No kids, no clients, no phone. Just you. You are worthy of it. Alright? Can you do that? That's your homework. And once you do the homework, I want you to DM me on Instagram at the Big Eye Girl Podcast and see and let me know how that worked out for you. Alright? I love you. I see you, and I'll meet you back here next Tuesday. Okay, next week. I'm Key and girl, remember to awaken that woman inside of you. Alright, till next time. Peace. Before you go, I just want to say thank you for being here and choosing to spend this time with me. It really means more than you know. If this episode spoke to you in any way, the best way you can support the Big Eye Girl Podcast is by simply following the show right here where you are listening. That way you never miss a conversation because new episodes drop every week. And if something you heard today made you think of another woman in your life, a friend, a sister, a coworker, share this episode with her. You truly never know how a conversation can shift someone's perspective or give them exactly what they needed to hear at that right time. This space is about growth, honesty, and seeing life through a bigger, wider lens. And it only grows stronger when we bring other women into it. So follow, share, and keep the conversation going beyond this episode. Until next time, stay open, stay hopeful, and keep living wide-eyed.