From Burnout to Brilliance

What if recognizing and prioritizing your personal needs could be the key to unlocking your full potential and fostering resilience? Join Dr. Julie Merriman on SoulJoy as she shares invaluable insights from her book, "In Pursuit of Soul Joy," to guide professional helpers through the challenges of burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. After a heartwarming recount of her recent family adventures in Montana, where laughter and sports filled the air, Dr. Merriman turns her focus to the vital importance of self-care. She extends a compassionate invitation to explore where you stand on the self-awareness spectrum, whether you are a seasoned advocate of self-care or find the concept intertwined with feelings of selfishness.

Discover practical tools to help you confidently identify and communicate your needs, enhancing your well-being and capacity to support others. Dr. Merriman emphasizes that embracing personal needs isn't just about feeling good; it's essential for anyone in a caregiving role. By acknowledging and addressing these needs, you can prevent resentment and victim mentality, allowing you to sparkle a little brighter in your personal and professional life. Tune in to explore how taking this powerful step can transform you into a more confident, resilient version of yourself, ultimately leading to holistic and sustainable self-care.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey y'all, I'm Dr Julie Merriman and welcome to SoulJoy. So in today's episode I'm inviting you to consider your needs, y'all. This is a necessary component of holistic, sustainable self-care. Sustainable self-care Okay, friends, I'm so glad I mean I'm honored that y'all stopped by today to check out the episode. I really appreciate you taking the time to tune in. I know you're busy and I appreciate you taking the time to do this for you. So just catch up for this week, let's see.

Speaker 1: 0:48

We just got back from Montana where we visited my oldest son's family and we went to the Grands, volleyball games and football games. It was just so great to hang out with everyone and see them. I really oh, that's a sad part of my heart. We don't all live close to each other, but it is a joy when we get to visit. So that's what the Merrimans have been up to and it's been fun.

Speaker 1: 1:15

But okay, professional helpers, this podcast has been designed for you and it's dedicated to preventing and overcoming the occupational hazards of this field that we lovingly chose to participate in, and the hazards I'm speaking of specifically that we focus on will be burnout, compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma. And I've got a book. It's on my website and it's on Amazon and it's in bookstores. It's called In Pursuit of Soul Joy and that entire book is about how to overcome these occupational hazards, because, y'all, it's real. It's not that we've done anything wrong, it's just that this work we do is hard and it's great to have tools and techniques to know how to get over that. So today I again am talking to you about you considering your needs, because Lottie knows you do that for others all day long in your work. But I want you to take a hot minute and consider what you do to take care of you, and so I just want you to sit there a second and just consider what comes up for you when I invite you to take care of your needs.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Y'all over the years because I've been talking about this a long time over the years I've found when I'm doing presentations or working with groups on this topic, I've found folks respond to anything. I mean the range is from well, duh, mary Moon, of course I do this to. Oh, that would be so selfish. I mean I literally see folks wringing their hands and becoming anxious just thinking about considering their needs. So I just invite you to consider where do you fall on this continuum, this range, are you like? That's a no-brainer to. I don't know man, I wasn't trained, I wasn't raised to do that for myself. I don't know man, I wasn't trained, I wasn't raised to do that for myself.

Speaker 1: 3:34

See, y'all, why this is important is because a strong, confident person is able to hold space for themselves, to go deep and ponder what their needs truly are, without shame, are without shame, without apology, because they know that this is the tool, one of the tools. I talk about a lot of them, but this is a tool that's going to lead to holistic, sustainable self-care, which I also call wellness, and that's a very important factor for those of us who are professional helpers and also y'all. These are tools you can use with the patients and clients that you're working with. But if you fail to get your needs met, you run the risk of becoming very resentful and even adopting a victim mentality. But, my friend, when you show up confident, allowing your needs to be known and met because if they're not known it's impossible to get them met, but if you show up knowing what you're needs are and asking for them to be met, you sparkle just a little brighter. Others notice, hell, you notice. You just feel so much more comfortable in your skin. So you might be wondering okay, okay, but how do I do this for myself? That's a great question, and I remember when I was first introduced to maybe this concept and how to. Maybe it wasn't the first time I was introduced to the concept, but it was the first time that the concept was coupled with a tool on how to make this happen. And this happened this first.

Speaker 1: 5:26

I was first introduced some years back, I mean quite a few years ago, but I went out to California, to Deepak Chopra's place, to attend a meditation retreat. I really love meditation retreats and this was a really intense retreat, but y'all, it was so rewarding. And what he told us, what we were first introduced to, is that before we can even begin to think about getting our needs met, we have to know who we are. So the first meditation that he took us through and we went through lots and lots was that meditation on who am I, and I still find that to be a very strong, powerful meditation. And that's what I'm going to invite you to do, first and foremost, to get really solid with that who am I.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Because how can we know what our needs are if we haven't taken the time to fully develop that concept of who we are. And I'm not talking about the labels you wear, I'm talking about that true self of you, who you are. So again, there's lots of information to be unlocked with this simple meditation. And maybe it's not so simple when you do it truly right, because your brain, your brain, wants to get in there and answer that question and that's a false place to go. You've got to go beyond that. But after you meditate on who am I, then you have space to think about and meditate on what do I want? So I mean getting real still and quiet, really going inside to honestly answer that question what do I want? And how this can be done for everything. And I invite you to do it for everything, from what do I really want for lunch?

Speaker 1: 7:35

I mean, have y'all found yourself with a plate of food and you're like, man, this is not doing it for me, it's not nourishing my body and soul, not doing it for me, it's not nourishing my body and soul. So you can do it for everything, from what kind of lunch you want to what kind of work do you want to do for your life? I mean that's pretty deep. Or how do I really want to spend Saturday? You know what does my soul really need? To have a Saturday that leads me to some soul joy. Because the whole idea here, y'all, is not to take stuff out of your life, it's to add stuff into your life so that it's so full of things that you want that there's not room for that stuff that doesn't bring you joy.

Speaker 1: 8:18

See what happens, y'all we get on autopilot and we buzz through life without really getting our needs met. Then we can get all pissy about not feeling seen or heard. Friend, you have you and only you can get your needs met. But first you have to understand what they are and how you're going to get them met. Excuse me, it's crazy, it really is. But once you start doing this for you, your confidence grows. And that's what this is really about Having the confidence to stop and say, no, I do have needs and yes, I deserve and am worth getting these needs met. See, the energy in your root chakra becomes more balanced and you feel the difference when you start moving, getting your needs met and asking for what you want. Imagine y'all showing up to life confident. You've got clarity and you feel empowered and it is possible, and these two simple meditations are going to help you get there.

Speaker 1: 9:38

So, before I go to that activity, I just want to remind you to subscribe to my email list and I'll send you my weekly email that I share with these podcasts. That will come with the podcast episode plus the bonus PDFs that I create for these podcasts. So go to my website and just jump on my email list. That's wwwJulieMerrymanPhDcom. So, okay, the activity for this podcast follows, okay. So to help get you to taking care of your needs, I want to share a who am I? Meditation. I want to share a who am I?

Speaker 1: 10:21

Meditation, and this is a self-inquiry meditation that involves asking this question without expectation. Your only goal is to connect to a timeless presence that is true self. So first, of course, you get comfortable, you close your eyes, you close your eyes, you follow your breath, follow the in-breath and follow the exhale breath, and you just do that a few times to just settle into your body. And then I want you to ask the question who am I? I want you to say that out loud to begin with, and then it can move to a silent question and as you're doing this, the goal is to reflect upon that question, really take a moment to just sit with it and just experience that question. And you ask am I this body? And you consider if you are your body and that anything you call yours is not you. And you pay attention to awareness. You notice the awareness that opens up and identify any words or emotions that arise, and I also want you to identify where in your body they are arising from. And then you return to the question who am I? You return to the question and look past any answers that arise. You're looking for an awareness. You're looking for it's more than your mind doing all the monkey mind stuff. It's going deeper and you're just being and you repeat that question who am I? As often as possible when, with sincerity, asking the question of the mind can lead to superficial answers. So you want to go deeper.

Speaker 1: 12:41

I found y'all when I do this, I've actually got on my phone and I encourage you to do this. I encourage you to record yourself reading the script that I just gave you, and by reading that script it makes it easier to use the meditation and then listen to the recording whenever you want to. So what I'm saying is you've got the recording, you've recorded yourself and anytime you want to do the who Am I meditation, you just pop it on. You just turn on the recording on your phone and listen to it. I found that is really a good way to get myself to go deeper, if you will way to get myself to go deeper, if you will. Okay.

Speaker 1: 13:23

So once you've completed the meditation, I want you to complete a full body scan, checking the energy of each chakra, asking what do I want? As you do. Well, as you check each chakra, I want you to ask yourself what do I want and see what comes up for for you in that chakra. If you find some heavy or stuck energy, I want you to take those thoughts through one of my superpower models to see if you can get to some underlying things that might be blocking you from that true answer of what do I want. And again, y'all this needs to be practiced on a daily. This needs to be practiced daily. You need to build it. I mean, neuroscience is involved here. You need to build some new neural pathways so that when you ask yourself what do I want, it doesn't feel foreign or like oh, it's a lot of work, that you're easy. It's easy what I want for lunch.

Speaker 1: 14:27

Let me go inside do a quick body scan. What what it? What does it feel like? Oh my, my Lanta. I've got all that salad. I want a yummy, nourishing salad and I'm going to have a great, some bubble water with that and just whatever. Going in and asking yourself what you want on a regular basis is going to help you build that neural pathway that's going to help you develop that self-confidence that helps you show up with clarity and empowerment in your life. And you also, the more you practice, who am I? I mean, those go hand in hand. So practice those on a regular basis. So, okay, that's it for today. I want you to know that I enjoy so much getting to hang out with you and I appreciate you being here. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen, and please leave a review, because y'all that helps me reach more people and I'd love to hear from you. So until next time, take care of you.