Episode 5: Reducing Noise: Mental and Environmental Clutter

In this episode, we explore how overstimulation, both physical and mental can impact our ability to regulate, focus, and feel at ease in our daily lives. In a world of constant input, it becomes easy for the nervous system to feel overwhelmed without us even realizing it.

Angie and Amanda discuss how excess stimulation can show up in the body and mind, and how intentionally creating space can support a greater sense of calm, clarity, and balance. By gently reducing what we take in, whether through our environment, habits, or thought patterns, we allow the body to settle and return to a more regulated state.

This conversation invites a shift toward simplicity and awareness, where less input can lead to more presence, ease, and connection.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Our mission at Living Simply Well is dedicated to cultivating sustainable well-being through integrative research-supported wellness. Always honoring the body's wisdom, supporting nervous system health, and guiding individuals toward a life lived with intention, balance, and ease. Welcome to the Living Simply Well podcast. I'm Angie, your host, and I welcome Amanda, my co-host. Thank you. Welcome. Let's take a moment to notice our surroundings. What do you hear? And what do you see? Perhaps you started this morning with a rhythm. This is the day that you listen to this Living Simply Well podcast. Perhaps your routine now is to have something delightful to drink. Perhaps you're diffusing your favorite essential oil. Creating a ritual and a rhythm of your life. Let it all be as it is. And even deeper still, despite the environment around you, I invite you to connect to your breath. That beautiful life source that is with you from the beginning to the end. No need to change anything, just notice. The mental and environmental clutter. We often think of stress as something internal. But much of what we experience is shaped by our environment. Visual clutter. Each of these asks for our your attention. And your nervous system responds by staying slightly activated at some times and greatly activated in others. Over time, this creates a subtle but persistent sense of overwhelm. Living simply well includes reducing unnecessary input. Not eliminating everything, but becoming more intentional about what you allow into your space. This applies not only to your physical environment, but also to your mental one. What you consume, the news, social media, conversations shapes your internal state. From a neuroscience perspective, attention is a limited resource. When it is constantly divided, the brain works harder, and regulation becomes more difficult. Simplicity creates space. And space allows the nervous system to settle. Our last episode we focused on routine and rhythm. And this is often what dysregulates um our environment, right? We talked a lot about those things that we have no control over. The child who spills the milk before school, right? And spills all over their clothes that they have to change. And the bus is coming. Right? Or the person in front of you who um is driving at a snail space and you're late for work.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Oh we know what that is, though. That is protection. So everything that's negative, I promise you, there is a positive way of thinking of it. Exactly. I've taught my kids they'll be driving, they'll say something. I'm like, you have no idea what we're getting protected of. We should be thankful for this.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

I love the reframing of things. Always. There's always a way to think differently. So what we know, what we know about the mind, um, there's some scientists who have done some very incredible studies about um, like, for example, one scientist that I'm familiar with, he was a Japanese scientist and he believed that the power of our words could be measured in organic substance.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

100%.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

So he took two small mason jars and he put about a quarter cup of rice in each one. And to one, he kept them in the same environment, so they were in the dark, they were cool. And one of the jars he repeated the phrase, you are a fool. And to the other one, he said, I love you. And over the course of seven days, with no change in environment, the rice that heard the words, you are a fool, turned black and disease-ridden. And the canister with the rice that heard I love you every day actually started to multiply. It was white and fluffy and beautiful, and there was almost an aura around it, which is so amazing. So the power of our words reflect the power of our inner thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yeah, that same study's been done with water frozen. And and what are we made up of mostly?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Correct. Yeah. So this is the this is the scientific study of energy, of light, of sound, but also the power of our living organism speaking truth and love to ourselves, reframing the negative into protection, yeah, reframing the thought that I'm not good enough into you are a beautiful radiant being of light. Yeah. I am love and I am loved, right? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Um, your brain, I don't remember, is it like the amygdala, the part of your brain? Everything comes in, it absorbs everything and it takes everything in, but like you can't physically, us as humans, like uh control that, right? Like we can't understand that. And so it sits there and it tries to figure out what you tell it it needs, right? And so, like, if you're looking for a new vehicle and you want to get, you know, like I'm just gonna say a forward explorer, because that's what I drive. If you're if you say, I think I'm gonna buy that, well, then the next day you go out and it's like, oh, everybody drives these. I really think they do, but it's like, no, nobody more drives it today as it did yesterday. It's just you told your brain to look for it. That's and it does the same thing with what you tell it about yourself, about this, like, oh, I'm so overwhelmed. I'm sorry, enjoy more overwhelmingness, or oh, like I'm not good enough, or oh, I can't do this. All this negative, you know, you know, you're whatever you tell it, it's going to look for ways to prove you right because that's its job, because it's controlled over, it's controlling your nervous system, it's controlling all these things, and it it wants your brain and your ego, its job is to keep you alive, and so like it doesn't want all the stress, it wants to do whatever it is that you're asking of it, it will, it will give you. So instead, we need to shift that and make sure we're speaking in ways of giving you abundance, giving you things. Like, I mean, even like the words like can't or don't or won't or not able, like all those, like you have to be very careful of how we say them because if they're a low energy word or a low frequency, it's like well, why would you want to add low to you? Everything should be a higher, right? So it's like trying to like understand your words really do matter.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

They do, and your thoughts really matter. Yeah. And the music you listen to, correct, everything matters. The rhythm of your life, the rhythm of your life is going to be directed by that energy that you're choosing, and you do have choice. I I see so many tendencies, even within myself, that that have felt that my future is has been determined by someone other than myself, by circumstances, by other people's choices, by the influence of the world on me. And I tell you that there is great liberation when we surrender that idea and that concept, and we take responsibility for my thoughts. I take responsibility for the words I choose. I take responsibility for my actions because it's really the only thing that I that I can do in my life.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

I think a lot of individuals are not aware of that. So, like when you're when you're born up until puberty, about so 10, 11, 12, you operate up your out of your subconscious mind. And your subconscious mind is based and rooted off of everybody else's perspective on what they feel. And you just hear it and you believe it. So how what you what you were told when you were two or three, that's rooted in you so deeply, right? But then all of a sudden, once puberty hits, now your conscious mind comes forward. So now you have your subconscious mind that's saying, This is what you are, this is what you feel. But then all of a sudden your your conscious mind goes, wait, this is what I think, this is what I feel, and then it fights, right? That's why people are like, oh, teenagers, and they get so frustrated. It's like, are you frustrated because they're no longer going by your ways and now they're thinking for themselves? When you get in those teenage years of fighting with your conscious mind and your subconscious mind, now what you're being told affects you. How your your parents say, you know, if they're harsh towards you or call you out for for not obeying, like that continues to be rooted in you. And then you become adults that don't know how to think for themselves or feel that they they have to go by these guidelines. You'll ask them, why do you believe that? And they're like, Well, it's just what it is. Like, I just believe it's like, have you ever thought about your beliefs? Have you ever thought about why you think that? You know, and it's like that's so rooted into us, or whatever. And it's like we need to stop and reduce the noise of everybody else's opinions and how they think it should be done, and start tapping into your body and thinking, like, well, no, I'm gonna step in what I feel. And like, you're you have a thing inside of you that's called your intuition, and it speaks before anything. It's almost it's like your next sense that we tend to forget about. Exactly. And so it's like, and that you feel it. I mean, how many times have you done something in life where all of a sudden it goes wrong and you're like, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. It's like you should have listened to that knowing before you listen to anything else.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

And it's so hard to know, uh, especially if you grow up without being in touch with your emotional body, right? And so all of the conditioning that you're referencing is talking about how society and our families of origin have sculpted us into the humans that fit in. And we've learned how to how to gain acceptance, and we've also learned the things that lead us to rejection. Um I believe that every single one of us are our number one desire is to be loved. And so if we're if we grow up without love, at the purest sense, because love is truth, love is kindness, love is compassion, love is peace, right? A lot of us don't know that. And we can define it in our in our mind, but we don't feel it in our heart, because we started to learn to squash our emotions because they weren't acceptable, and a lot of people then feel numb as a result, some feel angry, some feel rebellious, some take on the persona of victimhood, and and we stay trapped in what we think serves us, and it's not authentic, right? And so the suffering that we're enduring is because we don't know who we are, and all of those times in our youth that we became curious about why we felt what we felt or we thought what we thought, and someone who influenced our upbringing came back with a low octave, a negative, we told ourselves subconsciously not to feel and not to go down that road again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Um, it is very interesting how deep-rooted your subconscious mind that was created at that early stages controls you. And I feel that every time you you you shift into a different type of life, right? We're constantly changing and evolving. You're greeted with another version of you. Like, like I'm 38 years, 38 years old, and so I have 38 versions of Amanda, right? So there's times where like I'll be triggered by something, and it's like, uh, this is the eight-year-old in me, right? Like this is who's showing up. Like a lot of times, if you are dealing with people and they're frustrated and they're angry or whatever, you're not dealing with the adult across from you. You're dealing with their inner child, you're dealing with that subconscious mind. And I think a lot of times it's like um they're frustrated, and it's like kind of like I've said before, like you have to go, like you have a feeling or an emotion, and you have to figure out what the feeling below that is in yourself. So it's like, okay, I'm overwhelmed, I'm frustrated. I like if you're trying to do a task or something and you're not being successful at it, and it's like, okay, you're overwhelmed and frustrated, but what are you really feeling? Well, I'm feeling failure, I'm feeling I'm not doing a good enough job. And it's like, who's telling you that? Well, there's there's an inner voice of somebody that started that years ago as you were being raised.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

And we all have a different propensity to what we lean into, right? So fear is at the basin of almost all of our stress, fear of inadequacy, and and to keep it simplistic, it's fear of acceptance or rejection.

unknown 16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

I think when we go through things, we're not receiving what we need and there's a gap, our brain wants to fill it. And it fills it with what it what it believes deeply, right? Correct. So if I wasn't being accepted or somebody was somebody, somebody gave me an off-shoulder or something like that that made me uncomfortable, I'm just gonna assume they must not like me. Right. And it's like they might not, they might, they're going through their own thing. Half the time, people aren't even thinking about you, right? Or and it's like just because there's this awkwardness, now I have to go in and I can't explain it. So what's going to explain it is my subconscious mind based off of what it's it must be because of this. It must be because you're not good enough here. It must they must, they must notice that. And it's like not true at all. And that's even like in conversations or communication with other people. When there are gaps, your brain fills it. I mean, there are so many times that you have conversations with people, and then you come back, you know, you might have had a falling out with somebody, and you come back years later and you talk, and it's like, well, I thought this. And it's like, oh no, that was not the case at all, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Complete misunderstanding. Yeah, but through my through my own personal work, I think one of the things that I've learned is that when I see someone who is, you know, in my professional or even in my personal life, when I see someone who is angry now, when I see someone who is rebellious or perhaps choosing an addictive pattern, all that I can see through my eyes now is the suffering of their soul. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

I think when you do have pain and suffering, and you're in situations that that is your soul speaking, and that that that is it's telling you that this isn't working for you. Correct. And so that there needs to be a new version of you that comes out of this.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

And I like the idea that it isn't new, that it's the true soul that starts to shine. Thank you for correcting it. Yes, from the inside out, because this is very abstract, and I think this is where a lot of people lose their way, is they don't know, okay, so I'm aware of this now. What do I do about it? Right, right.

unknown 18:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

For me, it's been the the true practice of yoga that I ascribe to is the practice of yoga that calms the mind. Yeah, right. Yeah, our mind is the source of all suffering. It's those gaps, those thoughts, the conditioning that the brain has created its own rhythm and its own routine. And your voice inside your thought life, your how you speak to yourself is always reflected into the world and how you treat others. Yeah. So if you start with the from the inside out, through practice, through breath, and through reframing, life changes. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Well, and we've talked this this episode is about noise reduce.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

And noise isn't just what you hear, it's also what you see, right? And so you're like you, we've mentioned like the clutter and things like that. You have to start somewhere. And like what you surround yourself in, it's like your outer world is your inner world. And so I noticed when I was like probably at my my darkest, you know, like uh a mom of three, you know, I'm not, you know, my marriage was not the greatest. Um, and then I like would come home, right? If like when I walk in the door, you're I met with a sink of dishes, I'm met with shoes at the door, I met with all that, you know, overwhelm. Or you wake up in the morning and you're in my bedroom, it's like, oh, there's a pile of clothes. Like you're waking up to a chore, a task, a punishment, right? That your body is saying. And so we went on vacation one time and we stayed in a VRBO. You know, when you open the door to the VRBO, you're greeted with like flowers, you're greeted with beauty. And then when you go to the room that you're staying in, it's so nicely prepared, right? And then like you keep everything out of mind. There's like there was like a walk-in closet that had the area where you could just lay your clothes out. And it's like, so every time that we walked in on our vacation, it was, I didn't see the sink. I didn't, even though it was all there. And so it's like organizing your house or organizing things and like just start small. The first thing I did in my house was um like the a drawer. Like, like I went through and I like, you know, you can go to the Dollar Tree and get things to organize. You have no idea how many times I would just open that drawer in my chaos and just look at it being nice after I organized it. Like my my whole kitchen would be destroyed, and I just like open the drawer and be like, I'm safe. Okay, this is done. Next, you know, and then it was crazy, and I would just slowly and like I used it as like a task to like it was for me, and like my family really took to it, and they started noticing. Like they walk in the door, and it was like, um, I created a space. I used to have like you walk in and it used to be like a I called it like a command station, like this table with like our bills and like what to do and da da da. Oh my gosh, that was the worst thing ever. And so then I got rid of it. I bought this really nice table that had like a fireplace in it. I put a mirror up and I have flowers, whatever. And like it is insane how much my kids enjoyed that to where like they come in and they like the look of it too, and they put their shoes away because they were like, Oh, we want to make sure we like this feeling too. And it's like and like they would say it, and I would make sure, like when I would talk to them, I would be like, they're like, Oh, it's so nice in here. Like, how does it feel in you when you walk in?

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Right?

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Oh, calm, whatever. I'm like, Yes, like you know that feeling. That's right. That's what you get from this. And so it's like creating that to make sure it's just simple tasks to just relax you just that little bit, weird little. Quirks, but it's like I like it. Sure, it can get messy. It's always fixable. It's not that big. But when you get it back to order in that nice thing, it reduces the chaos of you know, seeing dishes or seeing that bills stacked there, seeing that it's just more reminders of some things you'd haven't done or haven't cleaned. And it's like more tasks. And it's like, no, reduce it so that you're not seeing it as what's greeting you.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

And what I love when we talk about the home um and the story that you shared is that it speaks, it speaks to boundaries, right? Um, because if we all live in chaos, no one really knows what their job is, right? Because we're just used to throwing our shoes by the front door, right? We're just used to dumping our our dishes in the sink. And from a mother's perspective, I've had some breaking points. Oh yes. That were completely that were completely um way larger than they needed to be because that was my life day in and day out. And the children wouldn't put their shoes on the rack, and the children would put their dishes in the dishwasher. I'm like, come on, guys. I emptied it this morning at 4 30.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

And like the reason why the reality is it's it's like it's not that big. No. Like it's not that big if they're in there. There's gonna I promise you there'll be another dish. Then I'm gonna lose my head over something like that. But the reason why you get to that point is because it's like you said, the tipping point. It's like it's like the one thing that, but if you go back and try to go back to figure out where your other clutter is, you know, and then you start or calming yourself and realizing like it's not that big, right? Like, um, or or there has to be another way because our frustration just adds one more piece of clutter, correct? That is so unnecessary, and it's low octane. So I'm gonna see a disease. Well, and then anguish. And then the thing is, is like you you getting frustrated now just shifted the energy of everybody in your home. Correct. Like energy is so real, and I don't think people really understand it. If Angie and I were fighting, or we there was tension between us right here on the podcast, you listening would feel that.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

Indeed.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

You would feel it just listening, not even being in the same room. Energy flows, like it and it goes through so many things. And like you can walk in a room where people are fighting, and you know something's off. You feel it, and so it's like your messiness in your house, your clutter, like that carries energy. Everything is energy, and so it's like trying to figure out ways that we can um calm it, it's never gonna go away. I promise. It's your house will never stay perfect, indeed. And and and you'll have to come up with different things. And if you ever are in child charge of a child, whether you're teaching or raising them or babysitting them, you know that something works two or three times and you gotta come up with something different.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Indeed. We have to have we have to have fluidity and we have to be flexible. And and I think when we learn to treat ourselves with compassion rather than judgment, right, um, then we can offer that to others. Because what happens, you know, I like the dish example. Um we had a lot of dishes in my household. Oh, yeah. And there's a pecking order with my children. And so as soon as I would have that moment of losing my mind, the ripple effect would unfold beyond before me. And the oldest would start talking to the youngers, saying, I told you that you guys needed to do this differently. And you won't listen to me, right? And so all of a sudden he started to take on this role as an authority figure, and he was a boy, right? But he really liked the role, it gave him a lot of power and control, and his younger siblings started to see that power and control, and they too wanted it. So pretty soon everyone was like, No, you're gonna load that load of dishes. No, you're gonna load that load of dishes, and nobody did it. I was like, hey guys, what if you just take care of yourselves? Right? Yeah, and don't worry about what your siblings are doing, just do your part. And if we all do our part, the dishes are gonna get done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Parenting is such a huge foundation of what they're going to experience when they get out into the world, right? Like not everybody can be in control, but if you just worry about yourself and do your own part, we all work harm harmoniously. But that's right. Our egos get in the way, and we're like, oh no, we want to do this. We want to do it.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

And I and I oftentimes bring this example of kitchen dishes into my workplace, into my team. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

And I think it's such a great topic because anybody, no matter where you're at in life, like you've been, you've had a family that you've lived with, you've you've had roommates in college, you've, you know, there's so many people that can relate to the dishes thing because we've all experienced and know exactly what you're talking about. Like we've all felt that annoyance or that like want to push it off on somebody else.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

It's it's sad but true.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

There will always be a dish. The moment you finish your dishes, there's a dish. That's one thing we we as a society should realize. Like, it's never ending. Same with laundry. The most, the most hated tasks, dishes and laundry. Who are you gonna fight over? There are gonna be more.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

It's not really worth fighting. Yeah, like we need a movement of just like, no, let it just be like and then I start to just, you know, um, I think a shift in mindset, even in simple things like dishes, is to find gratitude when I wake up in the morning and the dishes are done. Yeah. Or when I'm serving my family on these plates. Because my family still comes together for Sunday dinner, and I do want to say that not one of them does the dishes because now I serve where I've suffered. Yeah. And that is my gift to them now, right? Um, because it was a very, very touchy subject in their upbringing. And everybody else was responsible. And I couldn't it tore my heart up to see my kids fighting over dishes, right? So that's where our choice comes in. And for me now, um, I oftentimes think about my grandmother who taught me pretty much everything there was to know about love. Um and one of the things she said always was, it's it's truly a labor of love. And that is uh when I've started to look at my internal wiry, that rings very true to who I am. That is part of my authentic self, is that I feel a privileged presence to serve other people. And when I can step into space without resentment and truly just allow that authentic light to shine into the world around me, no matter where I am, that's when I have great meaning in my life. And I can choose not to be the frazzled mother who walks through the door and loses it over a sink of dishes because I see those beautiful faces and I say, Thank goodness I have a plate to and food to give you today. And I thank God that I have a dishwasher, or I thank goodness that I have soap and water in a sink to wash them in. That I don't have to haul this all down to the river, right? We can we can reframe it. Always, yes. And it reduces the noise.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Well, and even like like for me, there was five of us growing up as children, so I was I can feel what your kids went through, right? And so I just remember we each had like somebody had to clear the plates, somebody washed, rinsed. You never wanted to have to dry and put away. That was the worst. And but you know what that created uh in adults, you know who had that chat task when you see them, and they can stack dishes like nobody's business. Like, like it's like Jenga up there. It's like it's like a one wrong move and the whole thing's going down, but you you can walk into house and be like, ah, I know what your chore was when you were a kid, because now you don't want to the drying and putting away was like the worst, those will sit and dry on their own in this mound of dishes stacked.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Yes, like what if they fall down, you know?

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Oh, and sometimes they would. I mean, like even now as an adult I'll stack and I'm like laying in bed, woke up with like crash because it finally gave through, right? The the towel dried just enough to be slippery underneath.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Uh yes. So as we come into practical application, uh, we really want to talk about how to choose the power of your choice. And it's not just about action, but perhaps we start from the inside. Where are those barriers in your own life? Where's the clutter in your thoughts? Where's the clutter in in your actions? And start to look through a new lens at the environment around you. Is there something that you need to rid yourself of? Perhaps it's a small physical space like a desk or a bedside table. Could you adjust your phone notifications? Perhaps take take a break from a media that you regularly consume without judgment, just from a place of curiosity to learn more about what serves you, and to let go of those things that are holding you back, or dragging your energy into that low octave. You don't need to fully reset and change everything in your life. Just reduce one layer of noise, and then notice does your body feel even slightly more at ease? In reflection, you might ask yourself, what feels like too much right now? What might it feel like to have less?

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Um, something we didn't touch on that I'll just touch on bait small is sometimes the noise isn't clutter, it's not family, it's not that sometimes it's like the people that you allow in your life and their burdens and their tasks, your friends, right? Your your your and taking on their issues. Um uh I have a friend, I was just she just went on a vacation and she was going to see another friend that didn't get invited, right? Now that's a hard place to be because normally she would have the other friend should have been invited, but my friend, it was she just got invited and got to go. It wasn't her and it wasn't her thing, right? And so now she's taking on the burden of the feelings of the other person. And we were talking about it, and she was like, I'm so nervous. Like, I just I feel bad because like I'm seeing her and I just came back from vacation and you know, I don't, she didn't get invited. And I'm like, that is not on you, right? And nobody should put that on you. Um, you just got taken. And I'm like, you need to find ways to stand up for yourself as hard as it is in situations like that. Um, and just say, like, if it got brought up and she's like, oh yeah, I didn't get invited, and be like, oh, that's unfortunate. I missed, I missed, I thought you'd be there. I missed it, but um, I don't know why, and that's not on me. That's something that you'll have to reflect on with them. But um I would have loved to have you there. You know, you have to, you have to just put your hands up and tell people that's not, I can't take this today.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

And I love to lean into that even a little bit further, uh, because I believe many of us have left our those foundational years without words to set boundaries with people. And so for a lot of us, there is this enmeshment of what is expected of us, and it's oftentimes not congruent with our authentic self because especially as women, and I can only speak to that experience, but I know it was very important in my upbringing that that I be kind, um, that I be agreeable, right, that I that I uh be gentle, that I have good manners, the expectation that I fit into what is pretty, what is ladylike, and those those rules, those are noise, they kept me from saying no. And so in those moments where I've needed to say no, I couldn't, and I didn't have words for that, and I didn't have enough emotional regulation to say I'm sorry, but I didn't make that decision. Or I love you, right? I'm your friend, I'm sorry that you're in pain about that, but I can't take that on, right? Because I didn't learn how to set boundaries. I was always yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

But every time you say yes to somebody else, you're saying no to yourself, and saying no to yourself is the worst thing you can do. Indeed. And and and like I said before, there's a there's a cue in you that you felt the moment you got addressed with the situation. Like that's where like the earburn, the the fiery ears, the shoulders, like the the gut feeling, you know, like that's where that comes through, where it's like you need to listen, something's unbecoming unbalanced.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

And in those moments when the sink was stacked and the children were fighting about it, and I lost my temper, it was because I had said yes to things that I didn't have space for. And so boundaries becomes um rather than a negative word, boundaries allows us to take our armor off so that we can take off the mask of inauthentic behavior and words and actions that have been conditioned into us. We can take that off and we can place boundaries that says I love you, but I and because of that, I'm gonna tell you the truth. Yeah, boundaries aren't walls, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Excuse me. They're they're not uh armor or a wall. A boundary is something to protect yourself, but also to allow people, they're allowing people in, but they're telling you how to come in. Yes, right? Like you can't come in brash, you can't come in this way. Like, I don't allow that for myself. Correct. It's a self-respect and and you that's your right.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

And I love how it protects our energy, right? Because when we start to tell speak truth to others in love, I can say, you know, perhaps this hasn't happened, but if you came in, Amanda, for podcast and you were out of your mind, right? Your energy was unbalanced, and you perhaps you had an angry exchange or you were incredibly anxious. A true friend says, I see you're anxious. I'm here and I care. A person without a boundary says, We have a job to do, you better get it together, right?

unknown 39:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Um, and that's that that can oftentimes be a clear indication that you're in a mutually respectable relationship when we can speak truth to one another. Yes, yeah, and not feel guilt or shame about speaking truth, right? Yeah, and I would say that that has been the greatest life lesson to me um in this journey that I've embarked upon, and having freedom to choose kindness and honesty and high octave, and those those things that speak to me specifically, um, that are important to my own morality, has built this confidence that I can have hard conversations now because I know that the people in my life know that I care about them because I've been truthful. Yeah, because to say something that you don't mean is dishonest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

And and the hard conversations, a key thing to do, and I think a lot of people that have a hard time having a hard conversation, um, is you need to stay in control of yourself. So when if if we were having a hard conversation, I think a key tool is never point the blame on the person across from you because they're actually not doing it. It's you. You're triggered by it. Yeah, right. And so if you and I were having a conversation and there was something that you did that was wrong, it would be my job. The moment, the moment I say, Angie, you did this, you stop listening and you become defensive. Correct. But the moment that I say, Angie, right now I'm feeling very hurt and and um the situation has caused me to feel this, this, this. You're immediately going to be like, oh no, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for that. Let me shift, let me change, I didn't mean to. And now it's our job in these conversations to observe the person across from you that you're having the conflict with is giving you information, right? If you were to still turn around and try to post blame or play victim to something that you did, that's telling me that the person across from me doesn't see me.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

And that I need to make the decision of how I want to continue this relationship or where my boundary needs to be with this person. Indeed. That's you, and it's all about you in control of what you are and how you allow people into your circle, your inner in your circle.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

And the beauty of that relationship, when I when when we can come through and reconcile a misunderstanding, because 99% of the time it is, um, those relationships, they stand the test of time and they're very meaningful. I don't have many close friends, but the people who tell me the truth are the ones that are closest to me. Yeah. And I can trust them that they have, I know their hearts because they're honest, and and therefore I share myself with them. Right. And collectively then we grow. And we don't, we don't have to turn our backs on someone who's not emotionally mature, but we can set a boundary and just say, you know, if if you're feeling dysregulated and you want to attack me, I'm gonna ask you to come back another time when we can talk about it in a rational way. Because I am going to protect my energy so that I continue to shine the light through my intentional living with the world around me.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Yeah, I had a conversation with somebody yesterday. I asked, there was a topic, I'm like, maybe we can discuss this. And they're like, oh, I think this is just a simple answer. And I'm like, is there something wrong with having a conversation? Like, I just don't think there's necessary to have a conversation about the specific. I'm like, well, we can agree to disagree, but like I do feel that this is this topic is very important. And you brushing off the fact that that I the conversation tells me that um I I'm you're not a safe place to communicate with. It tells me that my opinion doesn't actually matter. That's what it's telling me. It's my job to communicate with the other person's doing to me. And if you can't do that, and like it does the first couple of times you do it, it's very uncomfortable because you've never done it before. Indeed, right? You're shaky, you feel like you want to apologize and just say, just I'm kidding, you know, but you can't, because the more you do it, the so much easier it is, and people people respect that so much more, and then they start realizing they can do that for themselves too. Exactly. Like, oh, that was that was so tactful. Like, I I should try that on somebody, right? Like, yeah, we're all here to help each other out, exactly, even in conflict, indeed.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

So in closing the Word clarity comes to my mind. And clarity often comes not from adding more, but from removing what isn't needed. Thank you for listening today. Thank you for spending time with me today on the Living Simply Well podcast. My hope is that something you heard in this episode helps you slow down, breathe deeper, and return to what matters most. At Living Simply Well, we believe that wellness doesn't come from doing more. It comes from living with intention, caring for the body, steadying the mind, and nourishing the spirit. If this episode resonated with you, I invite you to share it with someone who could use a little more balance, clarity, or healing in their life. Until next time, live simply, live well, and stay infused with what truly supports your health.